House Loads Tax Cut Bill With Multiple "Poison Pills"

For the last century the Republicans in Congress have been nothing more than the pet pachyderms of the richest Americans (the 1%), and yesterday they proved once again that they want nothing more than that. They talk about the people, but in reality the only people they want to help are the rich. They have a blank check for Wall Street and the big corporations, but can't seem to find a penny to spare for the denizens of Main Street.

A short while ago, President Obama expressed his desire to continue the payroll tax cut (about a $1000 average for working Americans) for another year. This would prevent more money coming out of a worker's paycheck in this time of recession, and give these workers a little more buying power (hopefully resulting in heightened demand which would encourage job creation). To keep from hurting Social Security or increasing the deficit, the president proposed paying for the payroll tax cut with a small surtax on those making over $1 million a year (the only people doing well in this recession).

The Republicans instantly came out against the payroll tax cut. They said it wasn't needed, wouldn't create jobs, and would raise taxes on the rich (the only people they think need more tax cuts). It didn't take long for the Republicans to realize they had made a serious mistake. Huge majorities of the American people are in favor of extending the payroll tax cut (and paying for it with more taxes on millionaires). By opposing the payroll tax cut, the Republicans had put themselves in electoral danger.


But the Republicans are nothing if not devious, so they came up with a nefarious plan to make it look like they were in favor of the payroll tax cut while insuring the cut would never happen. They wrote their own payroll tax cut bill, and loaded it with enough "poison pills" to make sure it would be opposed by the Democrats and the president. The Republican bill not only provided for a smaller payroll tax cut than the president wanted, but also included:

* A provision that would force the president to approve the XL pipeline from Canada to Texas. This is nothing more than an economic boon for the giant oil companies, while creating very few jobs and putting the environment of several states in danger.

* A provision that would exempt coal-fired plants from complying with the EPA's efforts to clean up the air we all have to breathe. And we are not talking about carbon dioxide here, but extremely dangerous chemicals like mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other dangerous particulates. It would not only damage the environment, but would be a literal death sentence for many thousands of Americans.

* A provision that would cut the amount of time an unemployed American could receive unemployment benefits in half. The Congressional Budget Office said this provision would result in 3.3 million being denied benefits. And since the economy is not producing enough jobs to even meet the demand of new workers entering the work force, these people would be forced in to poverty (which is already at a record level). And demand would be reduced costing the country even more job losses, since this 3.3 million people would have nothing to spend.

There is more, but that is enough to make their ridiculous bill unacceptable. It would damage the environment, kill thousands of Americans, throw millions more people into poverty, cause even more job losses, and keep the rich from having to pay their fair share in taxes. But the Republicans don't care. Their only purpose in proposing this bill is to force it to be killed by the Democrats in the Senate or the president. Then they could go disingenuously into the next election claiming they wanted to give Americans a payroll tax cut, but it was blocked by the Democrats.

Yesterday, they passed this terrible bill in the House of Representatives on a 234-193 vote. Now the bill will go to the Senate. The Senate Democrats need to have the courage to either remove the poison pills or kill the bill. They should not send this terribly flawed bill to the president and force him to veto it (which he has said he would do). It would be better for most Americans to let the payroll tax cuts die than to suffer the effects of this very bad bill.

NOTE -- There were 10 "blue dogs" who voted with the Republicans to pass this bill. They are John Barrow (Georgia), Dan Boren (Oklahoma), Leonard Boswell (Iowa), Bruce Braley (Iowa), Dennis Cardoza (California), Joe Donnelly (Indiana), Jim Matheson (Utah), David Loebsack (Iowa), Mike Ross (Arkansas), and Tim Walz (Minnesota). They all need to be replaced with real Democrats.