Obama's revised plan failed on a 50-50 test vote that fell well short of the
60 needed to break a filibuster. Three skuzzy Democrats abandoned Obama on the
vote.
"For the second time in two weeks, every single Republican in the United
States Senate has chosen to obstruct a bill that would create jobs and get our
economy going again," Obama said in a statement.
Every single Senate Republican (47) and 3 slimy Democrats blocked a floor debate
on a key portion of President Obama's jobs bill, which would have provided
states $35 billion to hire or retain teachers and emergency responders.
The GOP had agreed to repeal a 3 percent withholding tax for businesses with
government contracts, but refused
to tax millionaires just a tiny bit more. The withholding law was passed in
2006 by a GOP-controlled Congress. Then, the idea then was to make sure
contractors couldn't duck their taxes and the withholding tax was imposed after
government investigators found that thousands of federal contractors owed taxes.
(Corporate tax dodgers, of course.)
The GOP opposed asking those earning beyond $1 million a year to pay more, as if
they had already been subjected to a "shared sacrifice" like most
other Americans. The teachers measure has proved to be popular in public opinion
polls. Democrats said it would save or create 400,000 public school teacher jobs
and thousands of first-responder positions. It would be paid for with a 0.5
percent tax on incomes in excess of $1 million annually, beginning Jan. 1,
2013.
An AP-GfK poll taken Oct. 13-17 found 62 percent of respondents favoring the
surcharge on millionaires as a way to pay for jobs initiatives. Just 26 percent
opposed the idea.
The GOP favored the repeal of a 3 percent withholding tax on government
contractors that was scheduled to begin in 2013. The 3 percent withholding tax
has been a target for business groups ever since it was tucked into a 2005 tax
bill and signed into law during President George W. Bush’s administration.
Companies argue that many industries operate on slim margins and cannot afford
to have the government take 3 percent off payments. (Slim margins? All I've
heard about were the massive profits.)
Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska (D), Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas (D) and Sen. Joe
Lieberman, the independent from Connecticut were the traitors to the Democratic
Party and the American people. (Ben Nelson also voted with the GOP slime balls
to continue corporate welfare for the big oil companies.)
Two other Democrats who voted with the president, Sen. Joe Manchin of West
Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, said they couldn't support the underlying
Obama plan unless it's changed. Tester's excuse was: "This bill fails to
give taxpayers any guarantee that this money would actually be used to hire
teachers and invest in our schools. States would get loads of money with little
guidance that they spend the money on teachers."
A lot of Republicans opposed the Americans jobs bill because, they say, "it's
temporary -- a sugar high for the economy."
That pissed off Vice President Biden and he had an answer for that criticism:
"In housing the bottom fell out, foreclosures increased particularly in
poor neighborhoods, abandoned homes ... drug lords moved in, arson increases,
budgets fall because property taxes fall, cops and firefighters get laid off,
response times increase from five minutes to thirty, and innocent people die and
people's homes burn to the ground," he said. "There's nothing
temporary about kindergarten being eliminated, that will have an effect on that
child the rest of his life.... There's nothing temporary about the life saved in
a home invasion or a robbery because the squad car was able to get there in five
minutes and not in thirty." (Video below)
Since Muammar Gadhafi' was first killed, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell (a member of the Baptist Church) seemed more interested in nation building and oil profits in Libya, rather than 21 million unemployed and 30 million "under-employed" Americans. The jobless seemed to be the least important thing on the Republican senator's mind.
Muammar Gadhafi's last words were: "Do you know right from wrong?"
Well Senator McConnell, do you?
During his final semester of law school in March of 1967, Mitch McConnell enlisted in U.S. Army Reserve and reported for duty at Fort Knox, Kentucky in July 1967 - but like other draft dodgers who had powerful political connections during the Vietnam War, he was released early from his active-duty military service only a month later in August 1967, not even completing basic training (boot camp). McConnell had received a medical discharge for optic neuritis, a minor medical condition...but here he is, 44 years later, drunk, raising hell, and killing people.
Back in 2005, McConnell's net worth was somewhere between $1,645,032 and $4,278,999, ranking him the 38th richest Senator. After four years, when the stock market has flatlined, McConnell now has a net worth between $7 and $33 million, and he's now the 12th wealthiest Senator. Pretty good, for a guy who has evidently NEVER had a private sector job.
Senator Mitch McConnell (with his second wife Elaine Chao*) when he's not shopping at the Kroger store on Bardstown Road buying a gallon of two-percent milk. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky - - over on Dundee.
* Elaine Chao - Chinese, born March 26, 1953, married Mitch McConnell in 1993. President George H. W. Bush nominated Chao to be Deputy Secretary of Transportation. From 1991 to 1992, Chao was Director of the Peace Corps. Later she was President and Chief Executive Officer of United Way of America. From 1996 until her appointment as Secretary of Labor, Chao was a Distinguished Fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
During Chao's tenure, the Labor Department gave Congress inaccurate and unreliable numbers that understated the expense of contracting out its employees' work to private firms, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued on November 24, 2008. A report by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform alleged that Chao and other White House officials campaigned for Republican candidates at taxpayer expense. The report describes this as a violation of the Hatch Act of 1939, which restricts the use of public funds for partisan gain.
She also contributes to Fox News and various other media outlets. She also serves on the board of directors of Wells Fargo (3rd Qt 2011 - $4.1 billion NET), Dole Food Company (2010 revenues of $6.9 billion), and Protective Life Corporation (life insurance - $1.4 billion market cap).
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