An amendment offered by Senator John Thune (R-SD) to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213) has been defeated by a vote of 41-57.
The vote actually occurred on a motion to waive a budget point of order raised against the measure by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). Sixty votes were needed to adopt such a motion.
According to a press release, this amendment “fully pays for extending important tax provisions and Unemployment Insurance benefits, provides a longer-term physician reimbursement, and cuts wasteful spending.”
Some provisions noted in the release:
- The amendment extends the expiring unemployment provisions until November, just like the Baucus proposal and the House-passed bill.
- The amendment extends $32 billion in expired tax provisions that lapsed at the end of 2009 including the tax credit for research and development and the state and local sales tax deduction through the end of the year.
- The amendment drops all the harmful tax increases, and the costly $24 billion state bailout that is not paid for in the Baucus proposal.
- The amendment is fully paid for with spending cuts that have been supported by all Republican Senators.
- The amendment saves the taxpayers $113 billion in unnecessary spending by rescinding $38 billion in unobligated stimulus funds, cutting wasteful and unnecessary government spending, collecting the unpaid taxes of federal employees, freezing their salaries and capping their numbers, imposing a five percent across the board cut in government spending for all agencies except the VA and DOD, and creating a new deficit reduction trust fund where rescinded balances and moneys saved through this amendment will be deposited for the purposes of paying down the federal debt.
- The Thune amendment provides relief for doctors by adding an additional year of the “doc fix” and reforming our broken and onerous medical malpractice system.
(credit image – life/getty)
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Congress in Your Pocket
I have a question – and perhaps someone can help me…
Thune’s amendment – would it have included the Reid Amendment (4344) to extend the homebuyer tax credit?
How can one find out how an amendment like Sen. Thune’s or Baucus is changing pieces of the text? Is it assumed that if a piece of previous text is not spoken of in the press release – it’s not being changed?
I’m very new to following these part of the process.
Thanks for your blog – I am only now realizing how little I know about the process and mechanics of how these bills are put together.
Here we go again…
While reasonable alternatives are presented, bi-partisan politics steps in and lets the public pay the price.
When will these professional politicians realize that their endless debates, party talking points and egotistical presentations are destroying any hope of economic recovery. As they play politics, more homes get forclosed, more jobs lost, more small business close the doors, more bankruptcys are filed. The public suffers from the delays and those headline grabbing Senators that are the cause of the delays go home to a steak dinner while the unemployed dine on the dollar menu….and worry about sleeping in the car and getting arrested or mugged. Does ANYONE else see the ripple effect of every single day that the brainless-heartless Senate delays action? Their delays create most of the social problems that we have. People pay taxes in order to have SOME benefits to protect them from unemployment or health crisis…But the current Senate would rather play political football than to save a few families. They would rather waste your tax dollar on their personal pet projects than protect those that elected them to office. Throwing so called “stimulas” money at wall street did’nt do anything more than help broaden the gap between the elitist upper crust, and the dirt poor working class. If that same money had been directly applied to the working class, there would be endless new small business, low (or no) unemployment, and a thriving economy.When you place cash in the hands of the working class, they spend it. It circulates. When you apply the same cash to the wealthy or banks, they STASH it and it does not move thru the economy.
But noooooo, pay off wall street then ignore the 10%+ unemployment and just let ‘em starve in the dark. What a fine bunch we have in Washington.Can;t wait for mid-terms….
They can vote to throw HUGE sums to wall street, but they can;t understand why there is a need to prop up unemployment benefits until some decent JOBS become available, and trust me, nobody is getting rich on unemployment. They’re surviving, thats IT. With MANY people loosing their benefits in June, without action from the senate there will be mass forclosures, homeless and all other form of total economic devestation. If they don;t get their shit together SOON, the nations economy will be right back to square one and any progress thats been made in the last 2 yrs will be lost.
Thank partisan politics for the ongoing recession.