Reid Refuses To Allow Vote On Obama’s Fiscal Cliff “Plan”

One can always count on some funny stuff from Harry Reid

(Weekly Standard) Senate majority leader Harry Reid is denying the Senate the chance to vote on President Barack Obama’s proposal. Reid calls Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s request to vote on the plan a “stunt.”

“I reserve the right to object. I just a minute ago moved to the Russia trade bill,” said Reid. “The purpose of moving to this bill is to protect American jobs. If we don’t do this legislation, we’ll lose American jobs for sure and put American companies in even worse shape than they are with Chinese and European companies. So the question is really this: are we going to get serious here and legislate or is this more of the obstruction we felt so much during this last Congress?

“The answer to that is really obvious. The answer is yes. Or are we going to continue the sort of political stunts that the Republican Leader is trying to pull today, now? On the substance, the Senate has passed a bill that goes a long way to address the fiscal cliff. That’s already passed here. Last July the Senate passed a bill to continue tax cuts for 98 percent of all Americans and 90 percent of all American small businesses. If the Republican leader were serious about preventing us from going over the fiscal cliff, he would urge his colleague, the speaker, to get the house to — to get the House to take up the Senate-passed bill now.

A “stunt”, huh? Well, of course it is. But, voting on legislation is also one of the things that elected officials in the Senate do. (NMP) Obama has made an offer of a “deal” to avert the fiscal cliff, one which includes those precious tax increases that Harry Reid says he wants, as well as even more spending, as well as offering to maybe possibly if Obama’s not playing golf negotiations on considering some spending cuts next year if he’s not on vacation. It all amounts to $3 in tax increases now for maybe possibly $1 in cuts later. Is it any wonder Democrats prefer Harry Reid to call voting on Obama’s fiscal cliff offer a stunt rather than actually going on the record in voting?

Mitch McConnell opines

“Look: this isn’t about the deficit for them, or balance.

“It’s about an ideological campaign that most Americans thought would have ended on November 6th. And that’s also why the President sent Secretary Geithner up here last week with a proposal so completely ridiculous it wouldn’t have passed the House with Nancy Pelosi in charge, let alone Speaker Boehner.

“It was more of a provocation than a proposal, frankly. It was a message the President doesn’t want a deal at all. To date, not a single Senate Democrat has come forward to support it, and anybody who actually looks at the details would understand why.

And

“I for one was eager to see what Democrats in the Senate support this totally unrealistic proposal. I think folks should know who actually wants to raise taxes on family farmers and manufacturers, and who thinks we can solve our fiscal problems without doing anything serious to our real long term liabilities.

Speaker Boehner should bring Obama’s proposal up for a vote in the House, and watch the Democrats freak out.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!