On the Senate floor this afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he’s today introducing legislation to freeze tax rates where they are, preserving the Bush tax cuts for high-income Americans.
The legislation, McConnell said, “ensures that no one in this country will pay higher income taxes next year than they are right now.”
Republicans want to play a bit of jujitsu. As a GOP leadership aide asked me rhetorically “are there 41 [Democrats] to block a bill that doesn’t raise ANY taxes?”
Of course, to truly put Democrats on the spot, they’ll need a vote on McConnell’s legislation. While they’re not guaranteed a vote, Democrats might push for one. Several of them have advocated extending all Bush tax cuts temporarily, and McConnell happily cited Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman’s statement from earlier today in which he said he’d do “everything I can to make sure Congress extends the so-called Bush tax cuts for another year and takes action to prevent the estate tax from rising back to where it was.”
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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