This one isn’t going down without a fight. After Democrats in Congress publicly defied President Obama by refusing to endorse the tax deal he negotiated with Republicans, the measure is going to another vote. On Monday, the Senate will take up a procedural vote to attempt to bring the deal to the floor. In response, Democrats have threatened a filibuster (note to Sen. Harry Reid: Might I suggest reading aloud from the Tax Code?). However, yesterday, a test vote seemed to indicate that it would be easy to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
The House, however, remains firmly opposed to the deal as written. A caucus vote by Democrats on yesterday overwhelmingly opposed the compromise package. The major source of consternation? Tinkering with the federal estate tax. Democrats felt blind-sided at the deal which not only increased the personal exemption to $5 million per taxpayer (well above the $3.5 million per taxpayer under the so-called Bush tax cuts) but slashed the tax rate to a top rate of 35%, a rate not seen since the 1930s.
So what’s next? Here’s what will probably happen (though, in all honesty, nothing would surprise me much at this point): the Senate will approve the deal pretty much as is with perhaps some concession on energy tax credits. The House will grudgingly approve most of the deal, likely tweaking the estate tax rates and exemptions, scaling them back to the 2009 levels. That would force the hand of Republicans in the House by giving them the option of voting down the entire deal based on the federal estate tax rates since the deal, more or less, has already given them everything else that they claimed they wanted (tax cuts for everyone, etc.).
Expect some wheeling and dealing over the weekend. The “final” vote will happen on Monday.
It seems the plan on the table was actually more (of a tax cut) than the GOP was even asking for. What’s up with that?
The payroll tax reduction? Never saw any hint this was even on the table.
My wife and I both work and have decent incomes. We don’t need that 2%, and plan to add that savings (if it passes) to next year’s charitable donations. I don’t see how worsening the fate of the social security trust fund will benefit us long term.
This is fantastic news, and we in the solar energy field will be holding our collective breath until the vote Monday. The 1603 treasury grant has opened the door to may new financial projects making solar energy a very viable energy source.
If you are interested, I created a video detailing the solar lease: http://www.youtube.com/user/CivitasEnergy