Obama’s $858 Billion Pork Filled Tax Package

In a 83-15 vote…..A vote on final passage could happen as soon as Tuesday if opponents agree to waive the 30 hours that must elapse after a vote to end a filibuster.
Given Monday’s lopsided vote, the package is expected to win final passage easily, which one Democratic leadership aide predicted would “likely” happen on Wednesday.
Obama said he understands members of both parties are “unhappy” with the compromise, but he said the package is “first and foremost” a “substantial victory” for middle-class families.
5 Republicans voted NO
Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.)
Jim DeMint (S.C.)
Jeff Sessions (Ala.)
John Ensign (Nev.)
George Voinovich (Ohio) (voted against the bill because he thinks everybody’s taxes should go up)
US Debt Clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

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In a nutshell Republicans who vote for this are voting for two years of temporary release from a tax increase in exchange for massively increasing the Federal debt even though Republicans will have the numbers after the lame duck session to pass a much more favorable tax bill that Obama probably won’t have the balls to veto and if he does will damage himself and the Democrats politically whether the economy goes further south or not.

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From Rush Limbaugh:

If you don’t know anything else about the tax deal, just listen to this. “Senators on opposite sides of the battle over ethanol subsidies said Thursday an extension of key ethanol tax credits appears to be a part of the emerging Capitol Hill deal on the Bush-era tax cuts. Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who supports the corn-based fuel, told reporters that an extension of the credit for blending ethanol into gasoline is included. ‘I believe it will be in there…based on some discussions.'” Chuck Grassley says, yep, it’s gonna be in there. Tom Harkin says, yep, it’s gonna be in there. This is Washington as we’ve always known it. This is nothing more than pork. Both senators, both sides of the aisle throwing in a subsidy here, this is more pork spending. This is not representative of anybody having heard the results of the election or not getting the point of the election, and what’s being lost in all this, this word “stimulus.”

As we’ve pointed out all week, there’s nothing stimulative about tax rates staying the same. That stimulus has already occurred within the immediate years after taxes were cut back in 2001 and 2003. There’s no new stimulus that’s gonna come from extending. There’s no stimulus associated with a one-year, 2% tax rate cut in the payroll tax. There’s no stimulus in the estate tax being raised from zero to 35%. So where is the stimulus? Why does Obama keep talking about stimulus? Well, take a look at all the spending in this bill. This ethanol is just the tip of the iceberg. They’re loading all kinds of spending into this bill, and that’s why Obama’s calling it stimulus. Effectively what he’s getting here is a second stimulus bill. The Republicans are going along with this notion of keeping tax rates the same. Taxes ought to be cut. As such, they are going up. At the end of the day, if you take everything into account here, taxes are going up. What with the tax credit continuing for people that don’t even pay taxes, the death tax going from zero to 35%, this tax deal is becoming a Christmas tree and they’re putting all these pork deals on as ornaments and presents underneath it.

~snipet ~

That’s not what the election was about. They could go a long way helping themselves making it clear they’re not gonna buy a two-year deal with a certain tax increase in 2013 for hundreds of billions of dollars including new ethanol subsidies. What kind of deal is this? “Okay, yeah, we’ll take it,” say the Republicans, “We’ll take two years of the same tax rates and then we’ll take increasing tax rates in 2013 and the ethanol subsidies, yeah, what else do you want?” It’s hard to break old habits, folks, especially in Washington. Even the Republican leaders have been part of this system for decades. False deadlines, foolish deals, they become the rule. And it need not be. I now hope this deal fails. I say it directly and officially. If the deal fails, the Democrats are in control, so it is they who will be raising taxes. Let the tax rates go up on January 1st. Let ’em go up. Wait for our cavalry to show up and deal with this the right way. They had two years to deal with this. They’ve had the two years of Obama’s presidency to deal with this and they haven’t, on purpose. They want the tax rates to go up. We’re selling for nothing. Really, it isn’t any great shakes that we agreed to two years of the tax rates not changing.

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From The Heritage Foundation:
Any piece of legislation must be both constitutional and improve the condition of the American people. When President Obama and Congressional Republicans first announced their tax deal early last week, our reaction was to hold our noses against its bad elements; on balance, we thought the extension of the current tax rates was laudable. Now, however, the full text of the bill has been released and we see all the bad things that were in the original deal. Meanwhile, liberals in Congress are walking away even from that deal, and are holding the country hostage to their hatred of those they call “the rich.” The tax cut deal, we now know, has been so freighted with liberal special interest tax giveaways that true conservatives cannot support it in good faith.

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Wild Thing’s comment……
Deepest of sighs! The freaking democrats have to add their trash to everything they touch!!!!!!
“Losers compromise. We don’t. That’s what this election in November was all about.” ~ Rush Limbaugh