E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
At 3:00 pm ET today, the Senate will vote to break the filibuster on the bill that extends the Bush-era tax cuts. The "cloture vote" is expected to garner the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward. Vote for passage could be as early as Tuesday.
Cloture votes are sometimes needed to break filibusters that are preventing bills from even coming to the floor for debate. This is NOT one of those votes -- because the bill is already officially being debated on the floor.
This vote essentially suggests: "The major negotiations are over, let's finish up the minor stuff, stop talking, and get ready to pass this thing." Once this part is over, the path for passage is relatively clear.
The expectation is that several Democrats and a few Republicans vote "no" today, but the bill will still muster enough bipartisan support to advance. These cloture votes are often referred to as "test votes," because their results are sometimes indicators of who'll eventually support final passage.
In addition to today's vote, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will decide which -- if any -- amendments to the bill will get votes. But any amendments agreed to are not expected to alter the core components of the bill.
Leave a Comment:
Whomever Da Noid is. The name should be changed to Da Nutured. Quit blaming BUSH. The Dems ran everything but the White House before Obama. They did nothing. They are the ones that pushed lending institutions to make shakey loans see " Community Re-Investment Act" Jeez. Give it a break. Just realize this legislation will be good for the economy and Obama and Pelosi and Reid will soon take credit for the tax cuts. One of these days though all of the people out there that have been subsidized for two years must start making their own way forward. We cannot keep dishing ouit unemployment forever. And thiugh the Dems say so " unemployment compensation does not creat jobs". That's like saying, abstinence creates abortions.
Whose idea was it to build so many more houses than there were 'creditworthy" buyers?
Can you explain how Bankers and economists couldn't look at the numbers and see that the inventory of homes far exceeded the grasp and scope of people who could reliably purchase them.
I detect a scam. The CRA didn't force banks to lend, nor did it require them to sell the mortgages into the secondary market. In fact, selling the loans defeated the purpose of having the community bank take an interest in the financial well being of their mortgage holders.
Who caused the housing bust? Look in any mirror.
John Q. Public is so smart. Just read the wisdom expoused daily here. Yet somehow, he failed to see the carefully disguised housing bust coming. What a surprise. We all missed the signs:
Anything about what was going on then say - BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST -WATCH OUT BELOW! No, who could have seen it coming and sold out to cash and hunkered down? A few, that's who.
That didn't answer my question. Caveat emptor is just another way to blame the victims.
Sometimes the "victims" are to blame. (Can't call them victims if they were part of it.) The old saying, "be careful what you wish for, you might just get it", applies to those hoping mortgages yould be given out on just a song, and house prices would go increasingly up and up. A classic bubble--- too good to be true, you can't cheat an honest man...
Victims are never entitled to the majority of the blame. Yet that is where you apologists dane to go. If a house is bought by an uncreditworthy buyer, who makes a year of mortgage payments before they can't anymore, does the house disappear into thin air when they move out?
The asset, or supposed asset, is still standing empty, along with hundreds of thousands of other "homes" for which there are NO buyers.
The excess inventory served as little more that the bait in a trap. Whose idea was it to create this bait and extend credit to ensnare the victims we would then blame for all the fees and commisions we would make off their folly?
Be something of a man and stop blaming victims for your lack of morals.
That's a long way around the barn. If the "victim" was mentally incompetent to sign a contract, which might have been the case, then you have a point. If the "victim" agreed to pay the mortgage, and the bank accepted that representation, who is the victim?
Who was it that guranteed that home prices would continue to rise 10% or more per year? Just exactly who is the victim here? And why? You saying the banks created this bait? Not my experience - everybody was in a frenzy to bid asking plus 10% just to play.
The crybabies are always the same - loose at Vegas and they want a do over. Bet for a couple of years in the stocks of the dot-com and they were genuises - until the crash - booohooo. PLay the refi and flipper game for a couple of turns and then the bottom falls out - victim?
Just like your president - always looking for someone ELSE to blame. Suck it up and move on. Right or wrong, it is what you will have to do anyway - hopefully a little wiser - well....
Funny how you refuse to answer the question.
And then you employ the mantra of the con artist, "move on". Are you going to say "Let it go." next?
Did I say the banks created the bait? I don't think so.
The bait, the houses, are still standing, now empty. Who is to blame for that? They weren't built on spec by the uncreditworthy.
I am not one of the victims in this, nor am I one of the perpetrators of this scam. But if we are to have any hope to never go through something like this again, we should be demanding answers before we think it is wise to "move on".
Who caused the housing bust? Look in any mirror.
It was a bubble (like all the others before) caused by OUR collective desire to make a quick buck and easy living. You seem to think you are some pawn in plot to take your money by evil do-ers. Problem is.. we have a President who insists in going the wrong way.
They weren't built on spec by the uncreditworthy. The houses were built to satisfy the need created by flippers and Freddie and Fannie (government) willing to give loans to anybody because they could re-package them, pay to get them rated AAA, and sell them to other greedy people who didn't look beyond their myopic quick profits. Finally, they bought and sold insurance policies (CDS) to make everybody tell their investors their money was secured.
You don't have an answer to the question - you just hide behond innuendo and conspiracy theories. So, spell them out - Whose idea do you think it was to build houses when they were selling like hotcakes at the Founder's breakfast?
So in your own post you admit that there was a conspiracy to commit fraud.
They paid the ratings agencies to rate the suspect debt paper AAA. That is FRAUD.
You are working too hard to defend the indefensible, and blame the victims who harmed only themselves.
You read only what you want. Plenty of blame to go around. It was Freddy and Fannie (government) that had the bundles rated AAA. But, basically - the lemmings all jumped off the cliff. Only fools couldn't see it coming! You don't seem to be able to answer ..............
The ratings agencies had to both misrate the debt paper and pay hush money to the whistleblowers. Much like Picower fleeced Bernie Madoff, and the SEC wouldn't listen to Markopolis.
The numbers of creditworthy buyers is not some mystery to economists. The fools who fell for the bait, were lied to from the get go. They hurt themselves by believing what they were told by people who were paid to know better, especially better than them.
They were selling mortgages, debt agreements, the house being theirs was never anything more than their dream.
Great, we might be getting somewhere. Just to be sure..
You want to be clear and expose the plot - please spend a couple of sentences and define what you mean. The credit agencies did all this or were they just a part of some bigger plot? Thanks in advance.
1. Future lies in Education & Energy.
I guess the economic boom in the Clinton-Gore administration was linked to the third wave of IT industry, rather than the triangulation he pulled off.
( And he didn't sell out his core value regarding tax, and so on. )
The forth wave of ET industry, likewise, lies ahead, CA starts to reap the benefits. Regrettably, the reps stand in the way of it.
2. Guess who will have to foot the bill eventually for paying off the rich ?
The rest of folks.
Wait until the new Congress comes back in 2011 and start looking for ways to cut spending to pay for all this $900 billion. They won't target things that affect corporations or the rich, the entire tab will cost the middle class and the elderly. Social security, Medicare, social services, education, will all be impacted.
3. A one-year reduction in the payroll tax from 6.2 to 4.2 percent will give the reps chance to fight its restoration, endangering Social Security, which the conservative movement has long sought to eradicate.
4. Currently, American businesses are sitting on approximately $2.3 trillion in reserves, which, of course, could be used to create jobs.
For instance, hospitals have serious problems with understaffing, not because of the financial squeeze, but because of the cost reduction.
( And the understaffing could spark prohibitive ER visits. )
In an attempt to defend the prodigious windfall, they resort to using the term of socialism or socialists for reformers.
5. Let me repeat :
Extreme Capitalism failed entirely in 2008.
From my perspective, Communism & Extreme Capitalism have several characteristics in common :
(a). Power First, Corruption at the cost of ordinary people !
(b). They hate competition, accordingly there is no progress.
6. Presently, another Bush-era is threatening health care law.
What I find curious is that never before Bush has the US cut taxes during a time of war.
Now we're set to do it twice.
Says a lot of this country.
Republicans: We'll lower your taxes
Voters: Great we'll vote for you.
Republicans: By the way, we're also going to starve to death everyone over the age of 75!
Voters: But we still get a tax cut ??
Republicans: We're also going to pollute every gallon of fresh water in the country
Voters: But the tax cuts ? They're still in there right ??
Republicans: Then we are going to go to war with every Muslim country in the world, build a 300 ft high wall along our Southern border - complete with a mote (build by Halliburton and patrolled by Blackwater) and put an oil well in every acre of every National park.
Voters: OK, yea, OK - but we still get American Idol and a tax cut, so Ah... Great You're in!!