This is actually a next morning 1 Turkish coffee in the bag reaction. Earlier this morning the Senate passed their version of the Tax bill at 1:50 AM ET. I had held out hope that maybe I would stay up and see another dramatic moment like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) live up to his principles and kill a major piece of legislation that was generated in a back room and would hurt real people.
RT if you think we shouldn't re-write America's tax code in the middle of the night with...this. pic.twitter.com/iKuwh6ny4L— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) December 2, 2017
Despite the lack of regular order, Senator McCain was a reliable yes vote since Thursday.
UPDATE: Republicans rejected our motion to adjourn until Monday so senators could read the bill they just introduced.— Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) December 2, 2017
RT If you think senators should have time to read a bill that affects every single American.
Marco Rubio (R-FL) for a long time was a no vote, or if your whip count score card was honest he was a "wants something." What he wanted was an expanded Child Tax Credit. He didn't get it, but he did manage to pass something that allows people to deduct the price of private K-12 education. Not exactly a hero of the worker type move.
So many deficit hawks had their chance to prove their loyalty to their brand and vote against a bill that will add at least 1 Trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000.00) to the national deficit. Instead they invited doubt about whether or not they understood how deficits worked, or when it was appropriate to do deficit spending, like during a recession. Most importantly they sowed doubt that what they really disliked was that a black man added to the deficit, all but one were not black, so they were allowed to add as much to the deficit as they wanted.
The only Republican that held true to their talking point was Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), he was the sole defector from the Republican side of the aisle leaving the vote 51-49. This is of course a simple virtue signaling move and not a genuine vote. Senator Corker holds a seat on a key committee, and during the markup process could have slowed the bill and demanded a hearing. He would have had the support of all of the Democrats and therefore it would have stalled out in the Budget Committee. It was known then that the bill would balloon the deficit, so if he was serious in his opposition he would have voiced it then. Instead he allowed the bill to be reported out where he knew his no vote would not matter.
It was disappointing to see so many we had hoped to win over vote with the Majority. Those who could have fought back against the repeal of a key Obamacare provision (Murkoski, Collins, McCain), those who have been so outspoken about the need for regular order(McCain, McConnell(look back to his 2010 statements)), and those who were still causing havoc over the deficit up until yesterday (Johnson, Flake). Instead they chose to please their donors.
“My donors are basically saying: ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again’” -Republican Rep. Chris Collins— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) December 1, 2017
“Donors are furious” -Republican Sen. Cory Gardner
"The financial contributions will stop" -Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham
No, #GOPTaxScam *won't* help the middle class.
It was an altogether major disappointment, the bill will now go to a conference committee where it will be reworked, again behind closed doors. The final bill will be brought before the House and Senate which will most likely approve of it, also lacking most procedural hurdles it could happen quite quickly. So it is most likely that this will be ready for President Trump's signature in less than two weeks.
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