Who Can Take Republicans Seriously?

May 12, 2013

It is time for President Obama to abandon his hopes of reaching a grand budget bargain with Republicans.

At every opportunity since they took over the House in 2011, Republicans have made it clear that they have no interest in reaching a compromise with the White House. For two years, they held sham negotiations with Democrats that only dragged down the economy with cuts; this year, they are refusing even to sit down at the table.

Mr. Obama hasn’t given up inviting the Republicans to join him in making the hard choices of governing, but he has been rebuffed each time. This year, in hopes of getting some support for modest tax increases on the rich, he even proposed a reduction in the cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients.

The events of the last few weeks should make it clear to him why that offer should be pulled from the table immediately. Consider:

·       Shortly after Mr. Obama presented this idea to Republicans, more than a half-dozen of them began trashing it as too “draconian” and a “shocking attack on seniors.” For years, the party has demanded entitlement cuts, but the moment the president actually offered one, he was attacked. Then last Tuesday, Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, said that no grand bargain is possible because Democrats aren’t willing to make significant cuts to spending and entitlement programs. The Social Security cost-of-living change, he said, did not go far enough.

·       Senate and House Republicans are refusing to meet with Democrats to negotiate over the budgets passed by each chamber. Four times in the last two weeks, Senate leaders have proposed beginning a conference committee to hash out a federal budget; four times they have been blocked by Republicans. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said they were afraid the committee might reach an agreement to raise both taxes on the rich and the debt ceiling, which are, of course, the Democrats’ stated goals. Knowing that their positions would be deeply unpopular among the public if their stubbornness were exposed in an open committee, Republicans would simply prefer not to talk at all.

·       Instead of negotiation, Republicans cling to their strategy of extorting budget demands by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling. On Thursday, the House passed a stunningly dangerous bill that would allow foreign and domestic bondholders to be paid if Republicans forced a government default, while cutting off all other government payments except Social Security benefits. The bill has no possibility of becoming law, but its passage was a deliberate thumb in the eye to Mr. Obama, business leaders and those who say the debt ceiling should not be used for political leverage.

 

Republican lawmakers have become reflexive in rejecting every extended hand from the administration, even if the ideas were ones that they themselves once welcomed. Under the circumstances, Mr. Obama would be best advised to stop making peace offerings. Only when the Republican Party feels public pressure to become a serious partner can the real work of governing begin.

Republicans Are Impeding U.S. Economic Recovery

There is no longer debate in Washington D.C. about a fiscal policy that will speed the nation's economy from it's anemic Great Recession recovery. Private sector bankers, investors and economists who normally disagree about everything agree on what is inhibiting economic growth. Recent economic data reinforces their position.

The nation’s unemployment rate would likely be a point lower, roughly 6.5 percent, and economic growth about two points higher this year if politicians had not cut spending and raised taxes as they have since 2011.

Following two years of battle between President Obama and Congressional Republicans, the two sides have fought to a draw over their practically diametrically opposed approaches to job creation and budget deficits. The consensus among those whose political ideology is divorced from their jobs to advise those who wish to increase wealth is as unanimous as it is clear: immediate deficit reduction is a drag on full economic recovery.

We are speaking about those people who advise others daily on the latest signs of economic growth, whether it's in housing, consumer spending or business investment. The ones who belong to the color of money is green political party. What they are saying is tax increases and especially spending cuts take money from an economy that still needs stimulus and is getting stimulus only through the expansionary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve, which is far too little to make much of a difference.

A chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors recently wrote to his clients that, “fiscal tightening is hurting.” Referring to government economic policy as “ongoing fiscal mismanagement,” he noted that while the recovery and expansion would be four years old next month, reduced government spending “has detracted from growth in five of past seven quarters.”

That period coincides with when the Republicans took control of the House in 2011, promising an immediate $100 billion in spending cuts. While they didn't cut as much as they sought at the time, a subsequent series of budget compromises with the President — while not as great as they wanted — will soon reduce annual discretionary spending for domestic and military programs to the lowest level in fifty years.

On the revenue side, President Obama was able to force Republicans to acquiesce in January to higher taxes from the "wealthiest" Americans, albeit not quite as many of the wealthy as he had planned.

However, worse in the macroeconomists’ view, both parties agreed not to extend a two-year-old cut in Americans’ payroll taxes for Social Security, reducing the amount of money in circulation and inhibiting spending.

From the beginning, the President has fought unsuccessfully to combine deficit reduction, including spending cuts and tax increases, with spending increases and targeted tax cuts for job-creation initiatives in areas like infrastructure, manufacturing, research and education. The President's formula reflects the recommendations of private sector analysts, investors and economists. Nevertheless, Republicans, traditionally the party of banks and businesses, have insisted on spending cuts alone and smaller government as the key to economic growth.

Speaker John A. Boehner argued on behalf of the Republicans’ policies Tuesday with reporters. “After four years of mediocre job creation, it’s obvious that we don’t need more tax hikes and more government spending,” he said. “We need smarter policies to make America more competitive and expand opportunities for everyone in our country.”

“We’re the ones pushing this town to do the right thing when it comes to the economy and jobs,” Boehner added.

While Boehner was arguing for more austerity, the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets policy for the central bank, noted minimal signs of improvement in the private sector. It added in a statement, however, "fiscal policy is restraining economic growth,” echoing public comments Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has made for months.

In April, the International Monetary Fund said the United States would achieve further growth “in the face of a very strong, indeed overly strong, fiscal consolidation.”

Now, House Republicans plan to pass a measure that would direct the Treasury to “prioritize” debt payments if Congress and the President fail to agree on increasing the nation’s debt ceiling this year so the Treasury can keep borrowing money to pay all creditors. Under the bill, as tax receipts came in, the first priority would be paying creditors — like China — and only the would be expenditures like Social Security checks. Presumably, the Republican measure will die in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but these days in the Capitol, nothing is certain.

In a sign that the extreme right wing of the Republican Party is now driving policy in the House, the “prioritization” proposal first arose in 2011 from among the most conservative House Republicans. The same "extremists" who were fighting hardest against the White House on raising the debt ceiling and expressing disregard about default have now bullied the mainstream into joining ranks.

Again, private sector financial analysts and economic advisors dismiss the Republican “prioritization” idea as both unworkable and potentially dangerous, and count on Democrats to block it.

Gregory Daco, a senior principal economist at IHS Global Insight said the Republicans’ proposal was the kind that caused his clients to ignore the fiscal policy out of Washington, and rely instead on the Fed to for rational recovery mechanisms.

“Whenever I talk to our customers or clients, they sort of brush off everything that’s related to fiscal policy,” Daco said. “The view is, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’"

“What we try to convey is that it does matter,” he said. “It is important in terms of growth. It’s also important in terms of confidence.”

Daco noted that the economy was much stronger than Europe’s largely because the United States initially opted for stimulus measures and allowed deficits to increase when the recession and financial crisis hit five years ago. European governments pursued austerity policies to cut their debts, further stalling economic activity and in turn inflating deficits.

The more recent austerity policies here are helping to bring annual deficits down, as a new report of the Congressional Budget Office shows, after four years of trillion-dollar shortfalls. Yet, most analysts would prefer that the measures had been timed for when the economy is strong and unemployment below 7 percent – another argument echoed by Obama.

“While I agree that the U.S. must get its fiscal house in order,” Jerry Webman, chief economist at Oppenheimer Funds, wrote, “I join the likes of the I.M.F. in cautioning that too much austerity, too soon, is likely counterproductive.”

 

Excerpts from"Economists See Deficit Emphasis as Impeding Recovery," by Jackie Calmes And Jonathan Weisman, The New York Times, May 8, 2013

        

There Are No ‘Absolute’ Rights

Michael Tomasky 

The Daily Beast

May 5, 2013

Nearly every idea in the Bill of Rights comes with restrictions and limitations. To think that the Second Amendment should be any different is absurd.

Every time I write a column on guns, the howl arises that I am talking about a right that is enshrined in the Constitution, buddy, and I better watch myself. The howl then transmutes into an extended harangue that this right is absolute, and no libtard fascist, whether me or the Satanesque Dianne Feinstein, is going to limit the right in any way. The first soldier to charge across this rhetorical veld is followed by hundreds harrumphing their assent. The only problem is that it’s an ahistorical, afactual, and barbaric argument. No right is absolute. 

In fact, the Second Amendment arguably has fewer restrictions on it these days than many of the other first ten, and there is and should be no guarantee that things are going to stay that way. In fact, if we’re ever going to be serious about trying to stop this mass butchery that we endure every few months, they cannot.

Let’s begin by going down the list and reviewing various limits placed on nearly all the amendments of the Bill of Rights (I thank Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center for helping me out here). 

The First Amendment, of course, guarantees the right to free speech and assembly, and to worship as one pleases. There haven’t been that many restrictions placed on the freedom to worship in the United States, although there is a steady stream of cases involving some local government or school board preventing someone from wearing religious clothing or facial hair or what have you. Sometimes a Christian school or church is denied a zoning permit; but more often it’s the freedom to worship of a minority (Muslim, Sikh, etc) that is threatened.

As for free speech, of course it is restricted. Over the past 50 or so years in a series of cases, courts have placed a number of “time, place, and manner” restrictions on free speech. To restrict speech in general, the government must meet four tests. But this is always being revised and negotiated. Here’s one restriction on the Bill of Rights that I’d wager most conservatives would happily approve of. In 1988, the HHS under Reagan promulgated rules prohibiting a family-planning professional at a clinic that received federal dollars from “promoting” (i.e. telling a woman about) abortion. This was challenged partially on free-speech grounds. In Rust v. Sullivan (1991), the Supreme Court held that these rules did not violate the clinicians’ free-speech rights. So far as I can see, this is still law. It’s just one example from many free-speech restrictions that have been imposed over the years, as you can see here. 

Let’s skip the Second Amendment for now. The Third Amendment—my personal favorite—proscribes the private quartering of troops. Not so relevant to life today—in fact, the Supreme Court has apparently never considered a Third Amendment challenge. Onward.

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and of course, there are loads of exceptions to this right, the most notable being that whenever an officer of the law has reason to think an imminently dangerous situation exists, s/he may invade a citizen’s privacy. 

Then there’s the question of the “exclusionary rule,” by which evidence deemed to have been improperly obtained could be excluded as evidence. Jurisprudence on this question goes back a hundred years, and this very interesting paper notes that it has been two decades since the Court upheld the application of the exclusionary rule in a search-and-seizure case. Since then, the Rehnquist and Roberts courts have ruled six times—every time for the government, i.e., limiting the constitutional protection. (Funny, isn’t it, how many of these other, non-gun limitations on the Bill of Rights are championed by conservatives?)

The Fifth Amendment most famously protects against self-incrimination. Kendall notes that there have indeed been almost no restrictions placed on this right—inside the trial courtroom. Outside the courtroom, however, limitations are rife, having to do mostly with circumstances of interrogations and confessions made within them.

This amendment also provides for due process, and that means Miranda rights, and again here, we know from recent news stories that not everyone is immediately read them, and we know that it’s conservatives who have always despised Miranda in the first place and seek to limit or overturn it today.

The Sixth Amendment provides the right to counsel and a speedy trial, and here again, our time is witness to a slow watering down of these rights by the Court’s conservative majority, as in 2009’s Montejo v. Louisiana. 

The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a trial by jury in civil cases, and this contains a blatant restriction: the Court has never “incorporated” this right to apply to states, where the majority of civil cases are tried, so most civil cases don’t include this right. 

And the Eighth Amendment, against cruel and unusual punishment, has been much contested with respect to issues like juvenile crime. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments don’t enumerate specific rights as such and so aren’t relevant. The idea that any right is unrestricted is totally at odds with history, the law, and reality.

Now, back to the Second Amendment. I’m sure that pro-gun extremists know very well about Scalia’s famous opinion in Heller (2008), which dramatically expanded gun rights. But even in that decision, Scalia himself said that Second Amendment protections could apply only to weapons “in common use at the time.” 

Chris Wallace asked Scalia in 2012 about semiautomatic weapons and extended magazines, and he said: “What the opinion Heller said is that it will have to be decided in future cases. What limitations upon the right to bear arms are permissible. Some undoubtedly are, because there were some that were acknowledged at the time. For example, there was a tort called affrighting, which if you carried around a really horrible weapon just to scare people, like a head ax or something, that was I believe a misdemeanor. So yes, there are some limitations that can be imposed.”

Now I don’t trust him to rule that way as far as I could throw him, but if even Scalia is saying that, then yes, limitations are both possible and reasonable.

Imagine what conservatives would think of a group of liberals who insisted, while threatening an insurrection, on a pure and absolute interpretation of the Fourth or Sixth Amendment—and imagine how ridiculous they would look to average Americans. 

Hunters, sportsmen, collectors, and even defenders of their homes (misguided as they may be, according to the statistics certainly do have rights to keep and bear arms that are reasonable and should not be trampled. But the idea that any right is unrestricted is totally at odds with history, the law and reality. And the idea that a group of Americans possesses an absolute “right” to own and keep weapons that can—and in practice do—kill numerous innocent people in seconds, destroying families and communities and tearing at the nation’s collective soul, is barbaric and psychotic. As the old saying goes: if you want to shoot an assault weapon, go enlist.

For civilians, meanwhile, we’re one Supreme Court justice away from getting some sanity and balance to interpretations of the Second Amendment, and the only thing I can’t decide is whether it would be more delicious for Barack Obama to appoint that judge or for Hillary Clinton to do it.

How to win a climate change argument

Originally Posted @ Climate Desk by James West

Our Real Worry Isn’t the Debt, It’s (the Republican) Politicians

MARK THOMA, The Fiscal Times

February 26, 2013

As we head into yet another self-inflicted crisis over the national debt, does the potential harm from the debt justify the risky political tactics and potentially harmful brinksmanship that Republicans have used in negotiations over the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, the sequester, and whatever might come next? Is it possible that the artificial crises that Republicans have created during these negotiations pose a much greatest risk to our future economic growth than the debt itself?

It’s not only possible, it’s highly likely. Let’s begin with the economics. There are two main ways that government debt can cause economic problems. First, an increase in government debt can increase borrowing costs for everyone in the economy through the usual operation of supply and demand. The interest rate is the price of borrowing money, and when the demand for loans increases because the government is borrowing more, the price of loans – the interest rate – goes up.

This reduces spending on investment, consumer durables, housing, and other interest sensitive purchases, and the lower level of investment reduces future economic growth. But there are also benefits. An increase in deficit spending increases output and employment, and when the spending is on items such as infrastructure there is the further benefit of an enhanced potential for economic growth.

Near full employment, the benefits of deficit spending are generally low and the costs are generally high, so this type of spending can be problematic, but the reverse is true during severe downturns. In a deep recession when people are struggling to make ends meet, the increase in output and employment from an increase in deficit spending is very valuable. At the same time, the costs are very low since there is usually an excess supply of funds – the money piling up in bank vaults and corporate coffers is an example of this – and government borrowing simply soaks up this excess, it does not put upward pressure on interest rates as it does near full employment. This makes it very likely that deficit spending in a deep recession will be a net positive, even more so for infrastructure spending due to its ability to increase our capacity for future economic growth.

The second potential problem is what a recent paper calls “tipping point dynamics.” In tipping point models, there is a threshold debt to GDP ratio of 80 percent to 90 percent. When economies cross this threshold interest rates can shoot up quickly and cause a government funding crisis and the potential for sovereign default. Thus, economies with debt levels in excess of the threshold can suddenly be thrown into turmoil and recession, and if this happens the result is unambiguously bad – there are no benefits to trade against lower future growth as there were in the case discussed above.

Republicans have been highlighting the possibility of interest rate spikes and sovereign debt default, it’s an opportunity to force spending cuts and realize their goal of a smaller government and lower taxes on the wealthy, but the risks aren’t anywhere near as large as we’ve been told. To see this, it’s important to separate countries like Greece and Italy who must repay their debt using currencies they don’t control from the countries like the US that have their debt denominated in their own currency.

Our debt is a promise to pay dollars, and unless we run out of trees for paper money or the electrons needed for digital money, we can meet those obligations. So long as creditors know they will get the money they are promised, the incentive for speculative runs that can cause so much trouble for a country like Greece is all but eliminated (and there is evidence supporting this view). This is not a recommendation to pay our debt by printing money, not at all – there are costs to this approach – it’s an explanation of why the fears of spiking interest rates and default on the debt differ substantially depending upon whether a country controls its own currency.

The fears of a sovereign debt promoted by those with other agendas are very much overblown. We have the economic resources we need to pay our bills, we’ve managed just fine with even higher debt burdens in the past, and as a last resort we can always print the money we need to meet our obligations. The real question is whether our politicians and political institutions are up to the task they face, particularly today’s Republican Party. Unfortunately, the answer suggested by the negotiations over the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, and the sequester is not encouraging.

If we have a crisis, the ability to pay our bills will not be the problem. It will be caused by politicians on the right gambling with the economy, and an inability to pull back from the brink of a self-inflicted crisis created in pursuit of political and ideological goals.

The GOP Is Trying to Kill Off the Postal Service – And Succeeding

Postal Service dying from 1,000 cuts and a GOP stab in the back 

February 7, 2013

By David Horsey

As AOL used to say, “You’ve got mail!” But maybe not on Saturdays if the mail you are looking for is being delivered by the much-maligned “snail mail” of the United States Postal Service.

On Wednesday, the USPS announced Saturday delivery of letters would be eliminated by August in order to save $2 billion annually. The Postal Service has been struggling financially for a long time, as we all know, so this sort of cutback is hardly surprising. As the latest reduction in service is discussed and debated, though, it is worth remembering that the Postal Service’s troubles are not entirely a result of the historic shift in how Americans communicate with one another.

Sure, most people have not mailed a real letter for months, if not years, and prefer to send messages via email or text. And, yes, companies such as UPS and FedEx have stolen the more lucrative shares of the market from the venerable old post office. But the USPS might be in less dire straits if Republicans in Congress were not trying to kill it outright.

In 2006, the GOP Congress passed a bill that required the Postal Service to fully fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years and to accomplish this within a 10-year period. Republicans are always insisting that the USPS be run like a good capitalist enterprise, but few, if any, private businesses could bear the burden of funding three-quarters of a century of retired employees’ medical costs over just one decade.

In truth, the Republicans who crafted the bill were not interested in turning the Postal Service into a better business; they were seeking to run the post office out of business. 

With all those unionized employees working for a quasi-governmental operation that competes with private sector enterprises, the Postal Service is an affront to those who hate government, hate unions and hate to think that there is anything that government can do better than the private sector. The post office may be mandated by the United States Constitution, as clearly as freedom of religion or the right to bear arms, but it does not fit with modern Republican dogma and, therefore, has been targeted for extinction. 

About the only thing that has saved the Postal Service is the fact that nobody else wants to serve rural areas. No one but the dutiful mail carriers deliver to America’s remote addresses because it is a money-losing proposition. The congressmen and senators who represent those rural constituents have fought against further cuts and may well block the elimination of Saturday delivery, as they have in the past. 

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who represents a lot of folks scattered across the hills and hollows of Vermont, decried the plan to cut Saturday delivery. 

“The postmaster general cannot save the Postal Service by ending one of its major competitive advantages,” Sanders said on Wednesday. “Cutting six-day delivery is not a viable plan for the future. It will lead to a death spiral that will harm rural America while doing very little to improve the financial condition of the Postal Service.”

Sanders went on to lay blame for the Postal Service financial crisis squarely on the GOP. He urged Republican House leaders to work with Democrats on a plan to save the post office, not close its doors, but Speaker of the House John Boehner and his compatriots may not be interested. Saving the Postal Service and the jobs of the 230,000 middle-class Americans who work at delivering the mail does not fit into their vision of a leaner and much meaner economy.

Anyone who does not share that vision might want to write to his or her congressman -- but hurry. Do it while there is still someone to deliver your letter.

Original source: Postal Service dying from 1,000 cuts and a GOP stab in the back on Los Angeles Times Exclusive

Five things you need to know about the deal cut by the White House over the Holidays to avert the “Fiscal Cliff”

1.     The Bush tax cuts that were finally set to expire are now permanent.

The Bush tax cuts were set to expire on Jan. 1, 2013. President Obama and many Democrats won election in 2012 based on a promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans making $250,000 and above. 

Had Congress done nothing, the Bush tax cuts for all Americans would simply have expired at midnight on December 31st. 

But the deal that passed made the Bush tax cuts permanent for households making up to $450,000. This represents a $9,200 tax cut for people making more than $35,000 a month.² 

Now, it will take an affirmative act of Congress to actually raise taxes to undo this hand out to some of the richest Americans (an impossibility with the current Congress).

2.     The estate tax exemption included in the deal is a giveaway to the country’s wealthiest families. 

As Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik explains:³ 

“There's no purer giveaway to the wealthy than this. The final deal raises the tax to 40% from 35% on estates over $10 million. (That figure is for couples, whose estates are each entitled to a $5-million exemption upon their deaths.) The alternative was to return to 2009 law, which set the tax at 45% on couples' estates more than $7 million.

Who pays the estate tax? In 2011, about 1,800 taxpayers died leaving estates of more than $10 million. Their average estate was somewhere from $30 million to $40 million. Their heirs cashed in on some of the most nimble tax planning on Earth: Although the statutory top rate was 35%, the average rate on estates of even $20 million-plus (the average gross value of which was $65 million) came to only 16.2%.”

3.     The payroll tax cut expiration raises taxes on the middle and working classes

For the last two years, the payroll tax that wage earners pay on their first $113,000 of income to fund Social Security was temporarily reduced by two percentage points.

The Payroll Tax reduction was a form of economic stimulus that helped put more money in the pockets of working Americans. 

Instead, the payroll tax holiday was allowed to end abruptly and without anything to replace it, which will result in a jarring two percent reduction in the take-home pay of most workers.

Since the payroll tax only applies to the first $113,000 in income, people who make more than that will see a relatively smaller tax increase. And combined with the now-permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, some of the richest Americans will see a net reduction in the taxes they owe whereas working and middle class workers will see a tax increase.

4.     The deficit isn't really the problem.

The deficit hysteria that has become part of the conventional wisdom in D.C. is really just a way for wealthy elites and corporate interests (and their allies on Capitol Hill) to push for austerity and end programs that benefit most Americans.

The U.S. is the richest country in the history of the world and yet we're told by the deficit scolds that we're too poor to fund education or the FDA or pay for food stamps to keep Americans from going hungry.

Meanwhile, the same politicians who plead poverty want to give away billions in unneeded corporate welfare, spend more money than ever to fund the biggest military in the world and cut taxes on the extremely rich. Not to mention the fact that the cost of borrowing is at historic lows (For more on this topic read Dean Baker's piece "Look Beyond the Fiscal Cliff"⁴).

5.     The debt ceiling wasn't addressed. In two months, Republicans will take hostages again, and we'll be in the fight of our lives to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

The existence of the so-called "Fiscal Cliff" was the result of a terrible deal President Obama cut the last time Congress had to raise the debt ceiling. This set up a constellation of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that Congress was feverishly trying to avoid, and which paved the way to the deal.

But with the Bush tax cuts (one of the Republicans' top priorities) now off the table, we'll spend the next few months dealing with the automatic across-the-board spending cuts (known as the "sequester"), the end of the continuing resolution on the budget that funds the government, and the need once again to raise the debt ceiling.

All of these provide the Republicans with opportunities for hostage-taking, and we know they have their sights set on cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

As Republican Congressman John Fleming told the Huffington Post: "We still have more opportunities. We've got the debt ceiling coming, sequestration. So we're going to get taxes off the table. The president can't say, 'We've got to raise taxes first before we get to spending cuts.' We will have already done that. Now the topic will be spending cuts, from this point out."⁵

There were some positive things in the bill that was passed:

1.     There was no negative change in the way cost of living increases to Social Security benefits are calculated.

2.     Unemployment benefits were extended for over two million Americans who are still looking for work.

3.     The Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit were extended for the next five years.

4.     The Wind Production Tax Credit was extended for another year.

However, overall, as Rep. Jim Moran said, "We're going to look back on this night and regret it."⁶ And even Majority Leader Harry Reid tossed concessions suggested by the White House into his Senate fireplace.⁷ That’s why Reid was replaced in negotiations with Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell by Vice President Joe Biden who struck the final deal. 

Jim Moran was joined by seven other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in voting no on making the Bush tax cuts permanent for Americans making over $250,000 a year. 

They were: Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. Pete DeFazio, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Rep. Xavier Becerra, Rep. Jim McDermott, Rep. Brad Miller and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici. In the Senate, Tom Harkin also stood up and alone on the floor of the Senate explained that permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts was an absolute deal breaker.

These progressive legislators deserve our thanks.

Click here to thank the progressives in the House and Senate who voted to hold out for a better deal and opposed making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

From a CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Leading House Republican says Obama's deal gave away all his leverage, PCCC's Daily Change, 1/1/13
2. The 'fiscal cliff' con game, Michael Hiltzik, LA Times, 1/2/13
3. ibid.
4. Look beyond the fiscal cliff, Dean Baker, CNN.com, 1/2/13
5. Fiscal Cliff Vote: House Republicans Caving, Senate Deal Coming to a Vote, Huffington Post, 1/3/12
6. Rep. Jim Moran on Fiscal Deal: 'We're going to look back on this night and regret it', PCCC's Daily Change, 1/2/13
7. Harry Reid Threw Obama Fiscal Cliff Proposal Into Burning Fireplace, Huffington Post, 1/2/13