Punchbowl reports today about a bill that trades a Republican tax cut for a Democratic increase in the Child Tax Credit:
The Wyden-Smith tax bill is in deep trouble. The Senate Finance Committee’s top Republican, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, told GOP colleagues privately on Wednesday that he doesn’t want to pass a tax bill this year, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the conversation.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republicans at the lunch that he hopes they’ll back Crapo’s position on the tax bill.... Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) also spoke up against the tax bill and its child tax credit expansion during the lunch, according to two sources.
Republicans are a strange bunch these days. Last year the Senate passed a budget nearly on time with two-thirds of Senate Republicans joining in. But House Republicans revolted, finally relenting only a couple of days ago.
The tax bill is just the opposite. It sailed through the House with 80% of Republicans voting for it. In the Senate, something like 0% of Republicans are on board.
How is it that House and Senate Republicans can be so wildly at odds? It's like they're hardly even the same party these days.
It's just a game to them...who gets to block stuff this time.
Depends whether TFG’s stubby finger hits the speed-dial for Yertle the Turtle or the Speaker-of-the-month.
How much difference is there between slime and sludge?
Senators view themselves as a higher form of life. Even Tom Cotton thinks he's a cut above Gym Jordan.
At least Tom Cotton didn't hold a hearing on "locker room hazards" today.
Several reasons, many of which reduce to "Where you sit determines where you stand."
- Incentives look very different if you're a Senator not up for re-election (Most of the Rs) than if you're a Tiktok Influencer in the House (most of the Rs).
- Leadership between the two bodies is broken in radically different ways. The Republican house leadership is obviously dysfunctional, and has an enforcement squad to ensure it stays that way. The Senate minority is jockeying to replace Moscow Mitch, which adds an additional layer of mess on top of the existing hidebound nonsense.
- And they all hate each other. Which doesn't matter too much in good times, but now - well, just look at the Buck/Boebert hilarity for one example.
I think this is globally spot on. Just to add that most Senate Rs (at least the ones in the McConnell mode) *do* want parts of the government to function because it does important things for their major funders, but at this point in the election cycle *don't* want to do anything Biden can get credit for in November.
House Rs don't care if the whole country burns down as long as they get their Fox standups, and maybe even prefer it-- it would give them something to run on and they'd rather be planning what to say against a backdrop of flames and explosions than do anything remotely like governing.
It's not what species you are, it's what species you think you are. For example, President Biden thinks he's a Homo sapiens, his predecessor thinks he's a scorpion, and Peter Navarro thinks he's a frog.
"How is it that House and Senate Republicans can be so wildly at odds? It's like they're hardly even the same party these days."
Not only is this clearly true, but it doesn't seem to get the attention that it deserves. And I think that may relate to the infamous media tendency of trying to find an equal amount of fault on both sides.
But Biden is just so normal. Schumer is an old pro. And Hakeem Jeffries seems perfectly competent so far (he is, of course, relatively new on the national scene). Is there really all that much dissension between any of these top Dem party leaders? Not that I'm aware of.
As best I can tell, in fact, Democrats are clearly not in disarray. There are, of course, lunatics on the Left who want to burn Israel to the ground, surrender Ukraine to Russia, overthrow our supposedly repressive capitalist power structures, and impose strict racial quotas in the name of their chosen deity called social justice. But, here's the thing: they're not Democrats. I doubt many of them are officially registered as Dems (if they even register as part of any hated "system" at all), and they are so far beyond any sort of reliable voting coalition that they can and should be, in my opinion, entirely ignored.
So, among actual Democrats, there seems to be a surprising amount of unity. And that presents quite the conundrum for the press. How can they address the rollicking Republican reckoning without being able to report on any kind of similarly disastrous Democratic divisions?
One way the media manages to both sides the issue is to ignore the Republican mess that Kevin talks about. Another approach is to highlight the insanity, intransigence, and instability of Leftists in order to pretend they represent some kind of fissure within the Dem party (when in fact they are basically a separate entity attacking the Dems from the remote and extremist fringe that they represent).
Either way, we often just don't get an accurate picture of what's actually going on.
Social media algorithms have made extremists more visible than they deserve to be. Until we can find a way to re-marginalize them, it's going to be a problem.
The problems for the GOP Senators, I suspect, are the calendar and the polling.
1. IF you believe the swing state polling, today Trump is winning. Meaning a better deal, from the GOP point of view, might seem possible.
2. We are approaching an election, and why give Biden a bi partisan win?
Both are bad reasons, but likely hold elements of truth for the GOP.
my guess is that they are two different species.
Senators hold state-wide office, and most of them have to appeal to moderates to win. Of course, you have the very red states that give you a Tuberville or a Paul or a Cruz. But there are many states where they have to work a bit to get elected. Putting in a crazy like Hershel or Kari Lake doesn't work.
On the other hand, Congress districts are typically safe, so the most rabid candidate win.