GOP Seeks to End Tax Cut Debate as Democrats Push for Jobless Benefits

HOW GOP VOTE BUYING IS OUT OF CONTROL!!!!


http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA260NY3UD.html

GOP Seeks to End Tax Cut Debate as Democrats Push for Jobless Benefits
By Mary Dalrymple The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate scheduled a pair of votes to wrap up debate on a tax cut for American manufacturers and allow a vote extending federal unemployment benefits. An agreement to hold back-to-back votes Tuesday would first ask Democrats to support Republican efforts to shut down debate and finish the bill. It needs the backing of 60 of 100 senators to succeed.

If Republicans win enough support to end debate, then Democrats will get the opportunity to attach a 13-week extension of federal unemployment benefits to the legislation. <snip>

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., wants to try to strip tax cuts he sees as special interest giveaways, including tax cuts designed to promote energy production that were removed from a stalled bill and rolled into the corporate tax cut.

The bill has expanded over months of debate to include energy production incentives, along with a list of expired tax credits. <snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22581-2004Apr18?language=printer

Special-Interest Add-Ons Weigh Down Tax-Cut Bill


By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 19, 2004; Page A01

Congress's task seemed simple enough: Repeal an illegal $5 billion-a-year export subsidy and replace it with some modest tax breaks to ease the pain on U.S. exporters.

But out of that imperative has emerged one of the most complex, special-interest-riddled corporate tax bills in years, lawmakers, Senate aides and tax lobbyists say. The 930-page epic is packed with $170 billion in tax cuts aimed at cruise-ship operators, foreign dog-race gamblers, NASCAR track owners, bow-and-arrow makers and Oldsmobile dealers, to name a few. There is even a $94 million break for a single hotel in Sioux City, Iowa.

Even one of the tax lobbyists involved in drafting it conceded the bill "has risen to a new level of sleaze."

"I said a few months ago, any lobbyist worth his salt has something in this bill," said the lobbyist, who would only speak candidly on condition of anonymity. "Now you see what I'm talking about."<snip>

Somehow, I've missed the fact that there's another tax cut steamrolling through Congress. (Actually, I'd caught the pork part yesterday, but didn't realize it was attached to a tax cut bill.)

Does this mean that the Dems are rolling over on another tax cut if they can get unemployment insurance extended? Or are they just rolling over? WTF is going on?

But this tiny trade of a few million dollars for out of work folks

for approval of GOP transfer of many billions of dollars to the rich has got to stop.