BREAKING: Tax Bill In Trouble In The House? UPDATE: Procedural Trickery Backfired?

Via Michelle Malkin, the Democrats have pulled the rule that would have allowed the debate on the tax deal.

RT @jamiedupree: URGENT URGENT URGENT - House Democrats just pulled the rule off the floor for the tax deal - must be short on votes

They've moved onto a list of mundane bills that they are simply postponing final action on. It's just time filler at this point.

Sounds like big trouble for the deal.

Update: House leader says it's just "a bump" but that at the moment, they have no idea what they are going to do about it. Yeah, they've got some real issues here.

One of the big sticking points is Democrats in the House really want to up the Death Tax but the Senate GOP has made it clear this is a take it or leave offer. Basically, it's the House Democrats (and some Republicans) against the 81 members of the Senate who voted for the deal in a game of chicken.

UPDATE 2: Gabe sends along links to NRO's Daniel Foster who thinks Nancy may have boxed herself in with the procedure she used to bring the bill to the floor. Basically it would mean Democrats could vote for a hike in the Death Tax but even if that failed (which it would), they'd be passing the underlying tax deal. Seems liberals want to vote on them separately but can't under the proposed rule.

Somewhat related: Mitch McConnell says no to porked up Omnibus spending bill.

"Today I’m introducing this: a clean, one-page continuing resolution that keeps government funded through February 18th at current spending levels. Once the new Congress is sworn in, we’ll have a chance to pass a less expensive bill free of wasteful spending."

Why Republicans would agree to anything else is beyond me. Their position will be so much stronger in a few weeks, it's idiotic to consider anything else. Of course the real issue is it might be tougher for some pork addicted Senators to get what they want in a few weeks, so they might sell everyone else out for their own "goodies" (Princes Lisa comes to mind).

So far the only Republican yes vote is Robert Bennett (Appropriator, UT), who was denied renomination over his appetite for pork. A spender to the end.

Meanwhile, Jim DeMint is sticking to his threat to make the clerks read all 1,924 pages of the bill. It took 2 days to print the damn thing, so it will likely take at least that long to read it.

posted by DrewM. at 12:59 PM

| Access Comments