Republicans in the Senate shot down two Democratic plans to extend Bush-era tax cuts to the middle-class, because the proposals did not also extend them for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. After two hours of debate, cloture vote failed to gain the 60 votes necessary to bypass a filibuster. For a proposal to extend all expiring tax cuts on individuals with incomes of less than $200,000 a year and married couples making less than $250,000, the vote was 53-36. On a plan to renew tax cuts for all filers with incomes of less than $1 million, the vote was 53-37. Both plans would let tax rates for high-income Americans return to tax rate levels that were in place during the Clinton administration. Republicans, pushing for making tax cuts for the rich permanent, had vowed to defeat both bills. President Barack Obama, having returned to Washington from a surprise trip to Afghanistan, said he was “very disappointed” by the Senate's failure to agree to legislation passed in the House that would make middle-class tax cuts permanent. The Senate debate was a showdown over whether the wealthy should be excluded from an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. “These votes today are not going to settle anything,” says CBS News Capitol Hill correspondent Bob Fuss, “but Democrats want to make a political point: Republicans are so determined to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy, they'll block them for everyone else.” Democrats already eyeing the 2012 elections are using the debate to depict Republicans as guardians of the rich who are willing to jeopardize middle class families in order to further fatten the accounts of the wealthiest Americans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called out Republicans for pushing tax breaks for the wealthy after “time and time again coming down to the floor of the Senate and saying, 'We have a huge deficit! We have a huge national debt!' “And today what they want to do is drive that national debt up by $700 billion over the next ten years. “Isn’t it enough for you that the top one percent earns more income than the bottom 50%?” Sanders said. “Isn’t it enough for you that in the last 25 years almost all new income has gone to the top one percent? Do you really think that the CEOs of Wall Street who will make hundreds of millions of dollars a year really need a tax break?” “Let’s not give tax breaks to millionaires who in many ways have never had it so good,” he said. Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., responded by saying Sanders' comments were indicative of why bipartisan compromise was not possible in Washington. “It’s not Republicans' fault that these things take time and we still haven't resolved the tax issue,” Kyl added. added by: TimALoftis
