Bipartisan Coalition Blocks Senate Democrats' Tax Hike Schemes

Guy Benson | December 04, 2010 11:25 AM

Both Democrat-backed votes -- which Kevin aptly termed "meaningless" below -- failed to advance past the cloture stage this morning. Every single "yea" vote in favor of raising taxes on some Americans, including thousands of small businesses, was cast by a Democrat. Republicans and several Democrats formed a bipartisan "no" coalition, and successfully beat back these harmful measures. On both the Baucus Amendment ($250,000 threshold) and the Schumer Amendment ($1,000,000 threshold), Harry Reid fell seven votes short of the 60 he needed to push the items to an up-or-down vote.

Following this victory for taxpayers, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell unloaded on his Democratic colleagues, and the morning's proceedings:

"According to the strange logic of Democratic leaders in Congress, the best way to show middle class Americans that they care about creating jobs is to slam some of America's top job creators with a massive take hike. Today's votes...were a clear signal that Democrats in Congress still haven't gotten the message of the November elections. Meaningless show votes and anti-business rhetoric won't do anything to make the [employment] situation better. This Saturday vote is a total waste of the American people's time. Nothing we did today did anything to stop the tax hikes that are now less than a month away. These theatrics need to end. American's don't want political posturing; they want jobs. Today's votes were the clearest signal yet that Democrats do not take our nation's job crisis seriously." *