The Senate gave final approval yesterday to a five-year, $70 billion tax package that would extend deep cuts to tax rates on dividends and capital gains for two years, effectively locking in all of President Bush’s first-term tax cuts through the end of the decade.
The Republicans that voted against the measure were: George Voinovich (OH), Lincoln Chafee (RI), and Olympia Snowe (ME). The Democrats that voted for it were: Mark Pryor (AR), Bill Nelson (FL), and Ben Nelson (NE). Jay Rockefeller and Arlen Specter managed not to cast a vote either way. Jim Jeffords voted no.
The Washington Post reported that “middle-income households would receive an average tax cut of $20 from the agreement, according to the joint Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, while 0.02 percent of households with incomes over $1 million would receive average tax cuts of $42,000.”
Write Pryor and the Nelsons and tell them they can take your twenty bucks and shove them where the sun don’t shine.
I understand the need for certain Democrats to represent their constituents.
This doesn’t represent them at all. Sometimes, I think some Democrats in red states will vote for anything that says ‘tax cut’, even if it’s not going to help anyone out.
Pryor doesn’t seem to have a legitimate excuse, given that he’s not up for re-election this year and his fellow Democratic senator, Blanche Lincoln, voted against the measure.
All of these Democrats voted against it:
Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Evan Bayh, Joseph Biden, Jeff Bingaman, Barbara Boxer, Robert Byrd, Maria Cantwell, Thomas Carper, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Mark Dayton, Christopher Dodd, Byron Dorgan, Dick Durbin, Russell Feingold, Dianne Feinstein, Tom Harkin, Daniel Inouye, Tim Johnson, Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Frank Lautenberg, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, Joseph Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Robert Menéndez, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray, Barack Obama, Jack Reed, Harry Reid, Kenneth Salazar, Paul Sarbanes, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Ron Wyden
If Johnson and Landrieu and Bayh and Baucus and Byrd and Dorgan and Lincoln and Murray and Salazar and can vote against it, so can Pryor and the Nelsons.
….
Why don’t you switch parties instead of calling yourself a Democrat and then voting to saddle my son and grandchildren with your debt. While we are in an expansion we should be getting our fiscal house in order. We may never have another chance. We did not need the tax cuts with the artificially low interest rates we have enjoyed since 9/11. We do not need the tax cuts with an expansion. Tax cuts and deficit spending should only be used to spur the economy out of recessions. They should be temporary. To keep lining rich peoples pockets by not taxing them fairly on investment income is shortsighted.
Instead of writing and telling them to shove the twenty bucks, inform them that it will be donated to anyone who challenges them in a primary.
Good idea.
and then Schumer and Emmanuel will just pour money into the incumbent’s campaign via the big money DSCC/DCCC donors. yay!
but it is very important for us individuals to donate our hard earned monies into the individual campaigns we feel most aligned with instead of larger organizations who dole out money as they please.
Here’s my letter to my Senator Bill Nelson.