WTF, guys?
The
deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was apparently close to sealing with House Republican leaders to make a bunch of tax breaks for corporations permanent while ending others that help lower- and middle-income families, seems pretty much dead now. The White House
announced it would veto the plan, a veto that Democrats insist would be sustained.
"The president would veto the proposed deal because it would provide permanent tax breaks to help well-connected corporations while neglecting working families," said Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman. […]
A veto would be the third and by far the most significant of Mr. Obama’s presidency. His threat sent negotiators back to the table to see if Republicans could add measures that would win liberal support, especially a permanently expanded child tax credit for the working poor.
"It's somewhat ironic they're willing to just proceed here, unpaid for, leave the middle class behind and include a lot of things that I think wouldn't benefit our economy," said Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Why Reid would be willing to strike such a deal remains sort of a mystery, but Senate Democrats apparently argued to the
Times in this piece that they thought it was the best deal possible before leadership in the Senate changes hands in January, and this:
Republicans say Congress might pass a one-year retroactive measure that would simply start the fight all over again in January, when they control the Senate and their numbers are fortified in the House.
Postponing the inevitable? But it was a very one-sided return on the negotiations. What Reid would have gained is a permanent extension of the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides tax relief for people with student loans, an extension of the deduction for employer-provided mass transit benefits, charitable-giving incentives, and the deduction for state and local sales taxes. None of that is worth jettisoning the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit or Child Care Tax Credit that benefit so many lower-income families. The deal makes no sense from a Democratic perspective, which is why Sen. Sherrod Brown and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi say they are determined to scuttle it.
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, made several calls to key House Democrats to ensure the votes would be there in the House to sustain the president’s veto.
"The light of day has changed the way this agreement might look," Mr. Brown said.
It can pretty much be considered dead at this point, with the veto threat and Democratic opposition. But it's an alarming harbinger of what might come from Senate Democratic leadership when they're in the minority.