Wednesday, December 21, 2011

A Falsehood About A False Vote

On her Facebook page, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is trying to blame stubborn Senate Democrats for failing to extend the payroll tax holiday. I guess she has no quarrel with the thirty-seven stubborn Republican senators who followed suit.

But here is what she's not sharing with her constituents.

The bill that was brought to a vote was simply a procedural ploy by Speaker Boehner that allowed members to record a yes or no vote and kill the bill regardless. A "yes" vote called on a conference committee to be established while rejecting the Senate bill. A "no" vote rejected both establishing the conference committee and the Senate bill. The Republican House leadership did not give the Senate bill a fair vote because no matter how the representatives of this extremely tarnished institution voted, the bill would be rejected. So...yeah...that's moving the process forward...in a backwards sort of way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about a super conference committee? Oh wait, that didn't turn out so super. Have we tried stupendous conference committee yet?

Anonymous said...

The payroll tax issue also reveals the frailty of the Democrats' platform. It's the only issue giving Obama transaction. In fact, it seems to be Obama's only issue at all.

Working-class-oriented progressives had to push against liberals to get the regressive payroll tax cut on Obama's agenda at all. (Traditional liberals say the cut will threaten social security.) There is a certain irony that progressives are now supplying both Obama's only winning issue and his rhetoric (co-opted from Occupy), since he otherwise has spurned them in favor of Wall Street donors and party elites.

The payroll cut issue, although substantive, can't sustain Obama's campaign.