Crush Liberalism

“Conservative” Dems in House vote for tax increase

Considering the Senate is likely to kill it, and if not, Bush will veto it, this is a curious move.  From Red State:

Blue Dog Democrats in the House are about to sacrifice themselves for nothing. The House is going to vote on the private equity tax increase and WaPo says the Dems are extremely divided on the issue.

Blue Dog Democrats, the pseudo-conservative Democrats, are the ones Pelosi has found to get the tax increase passed. That’s right, these supposedly fiscal conservative Democrats are going to vote for a tax increase.

And then the Senate will kill it.

Let’s go back to 1993 and Clinton’s BTU tax. The Blue Dogs voted for the Clinton tax increase only to see the Senate kill it. Then they met the voters and the voters rejected them. From the May 26, 1993, edition of the Denver Post:

The political problem is that the public has figured that out. Oklahoma Sen. David Boren has already opposed the energy tax – and when Boren’s “no” vote is added to the nine Republican opponents on the Senate Finance Committee, it is enough to kill the plan. That means Clinton’s tax plan will be dead on arrival in the Senate – if it gets that far. Meanwhile, House Democrats, who have to run again in 1994, are already wondering why they should anger voters just to let the Clinton tax plan die in the Senate.

Maybe history will repeat itself. 

Just as a leopard can’t change its spots, a Democrat can’t change his/her reflexive tendency to increase taxes.

November 8, 2007 - Posted by crushliberalism | economic ignorance, taxes