With congressional Republicans on the verge of approving major tax cut legislation Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) deployed a procedural tactic likely to delay its passage until Wednesday.
After the House passed the bill on a largely party-line vote of 227 to 203, Sanders and Wyden objected to the inclusion of three provisions with no budgetary impact. In order to approve legislation through the budget reconciliation process — with just 51 votes instead of the usual 60 — senators are barred from considering unrelated policy matters.
The violation of the so-called Byrd Rule will force the Senate to strip those provisions from the bill and vote on a different version than what passed the House. That, in turn, will require a second vote from the House, likely on Wednesday, before the legislation can advance to President Donald Trump’s desk.
“In the mad dash to provide tax breaks for their billionaire campaign contributors, our Republican colleagues forgot to comply with the rules of the Senate,” Sanders said Tuesday in a written statement. “We applaud the [Senate] parliamentarian for determining that three provisions in this disastrous bill are in violation of the Byrd rule.”
While the move will delay the bill’s final passage, it is unlikely to change any minds. All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation opposed it earlier in the legislative process.
In a floor speech before voting against the bill Tuesday, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) slammed it as a giveaway to corporations and wealthy Americans at the expense of middle-class and low-income taxpayers.
“There is some benefit in this bill for the middle class, but let’s get real: Those benefits are tiny and they’re temporary,” Welch said, adding that most of the long-term gains would benefit the top 1 percent of earners.
In his own statement Tuesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) criticized the legislation, which he said is “loaded with last-minute special interest giveaways.”
Leahy blamed the bill’s flaws on Republican efforts to rush it through Congress.
“No hearings were ever held on this bill, denying the American people an opportunity to add their voices to the debate,” Leahy said. “When the Senate voted on its version of this bill in the dead of night, Senators only received the text a few hours before the vote — and even then, the text was hastily put together, with scribbles written into the margins.”
The House is expected to vote on a revised version of the tax overhaul Wednesday. Kate Hamilton, a spokesperson for Welch, said he plans to vote against the bill again.
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Let’s see, Leahy (a lawyer) objected to the bill on grounds that no hearings were held (yawn). Bernie objected on legal grounds that nlified the vote. Something wrong with this picture?
I have the fix. Each state taxes it’s rich to pay for the cuts to Medicaid, medicare, CHIP and Healthcare. We can’t just lie down and ignore our most vulnerable..I know the red states wont but maybe they’ll vote out the Republicans.
A poem by Citizen
Democrats are crying today,
More money in your take home pay,
Thats not the Democrats way,
Ha ray tax reform today,
Ild Like to thank the GOP,
You stopped the government from pissing on me,
Now we once again live in the land of the free,
Ha ray tax reform today.
#timetovotethebaldguysout
Hey Seven Days – could you include in your story what the provisions were? Seems like something that should be or was this written from press releases?
Wasn’t Obamacare passed without a lot of hearings so people could read what was in the bill per Pelosi?
Amazing how bad it is when the shoe is on the other foot.
Citizen, you must be a trump lover for falling for that disaster of a tax plan, either that or you are a person that has a lot of money
“Wasn’t Obamacare passed without a lot of hearings so people could read what was in the bill per Pelosi?” No, it wasn’t. There were countless hours of hearings, televised on C-Span (I watched dozens of hours myself — quite interesting, actually) which included many amendments from Republicans who didn’t support the bill.
The Pelosi bill refers to the final senate version, which at the time of her poorly-phrased remark, was still changing: In the fall of the year, Pelosi said today, the outside groups…were saying its about abortion, which it never was. Its about death panels, which it never was. Its about a job-killer, which it creates four million. Its about increasing the deficit; well, the main reason to pass it was to decrease the deficit. Her contention was that the Senate didnt have a bill. And until the Senate produced an actual piece of legislation that could be matched up and debated against what was passed by the House, no one truly knew what would be voted on. They were still trying to woo the Republicans, Pelosi said of the Senate leadership and the White House, trying to get that 60th vote that never was coming. Thats why [there was a] reconciliation [vote] that required only a simple majority.
So, thats why I was saying we have to pass a bill so we can see so that we can show you what it is and what it isnt, Pelosi continued. It is none of these things. Its not going to be any of these things. She recognized that her comment was a good statement to take out of context. But the minority leader added, But the fact is, until you have a bill, you cant really, we cant really debunk what theyre saying….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan…