Unanimously skittish
by digby
[The jobs bill is] dead on arrival as far as Republican leadership is concerned, but it also lacks unanimous support among Democrats. And since the Senate is the one body Democrats control, that’s creating a bit of dissonance. Obama says vote on the bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn’t have the votes, and, if he put it on the floor today, he’d probably lose a handful or more Democrats.
That would invite Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to reprise his oft-repeated line that the only thing bipartisan about President Obama’s jobs bill is the opposition to it. And that’s something Reid wants to avoid.
So while Republicans taunt Reid and his party for not doing as Obama says and passing the jobs bill “right now,” Democrats are looking at ways to tweak the legislation so that it can get unanimous support from his party, and Democrats can make a case to the public that they’re united behind a jobs plan Republicans are refusing to support.
This is not going to pass in any case so it’s just a campaign issue. Maybe it doesn’t matter what they unanimously agree to as long as they unanimously agree to something that’s called a “jobs bill.”
But when you look at what the hang-up is, it’s a bigger problem:
Senate Democratic aides say the tax enforcement mechanism is the key sticking point for the caucus, but have yet to identify which specific tax proposals would have to go, and what alternatives could be swapped in for them. Democrats from fossil fuel states have objected to the bill’s call to end tax benefits for oil and gas companies. Other Democrats have expressed concern about a call to end the so-called carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund and private equity managers to count their income as capital gains, and thus pay taxes at a significantly lower rate than most individuals.
It’s theoretically possible that some Democrats running for office combined with the activities happening on the streets will be able to create a mandate for higher taxes on the rich. But it’s going to be a very tough slog. Decades of propaganda have convinced an awful lot of people that to tax the wealthy and highly profitable industry is economically and politically suicidal.
At this point, I think they should concentrate on help now, pay later. This confusion between jobs and deficits and taxes has twisted them into a pretzel and they need to keep it simple if they actually hope to create a political environment in which it’s possible to do what’s necessary for the economy.
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