Meaningless Political Statement

Ravenwood is annoyed by the recent Senate maneuver to force tax cuts (including making temporary cuts permanent) to require a 60 vote supermajority to pass. I was too, for about 30 seconds, but then I realized...

This is a meaningless political statement. In addition to being very likely to be removed by the House in conference, it already takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. With the soft filibuster rule, where the Senator doesn't actually have to maintain the floor (just to announce his intent to filibuster), cloture comes into effect. Cloture (stopping discussion preparatory to voting) requires 60 votes.

So I am still annoyed, but my annoyance is of a different kind: what kind of political statement are the Republicans attempting to make? The Democrats are likely hoping to embarass the President. Are the Republicans? If so, I'm OK with that; I don't hold Party discipline to be somehow sacrosanct.

If, on the other hand, the message is that tax cuts are a bad idea, then these Senators have gotten it completely backwards, and need to be removed from office by the voters (along with, frankly, many of the Democrats). Rebalancing the budget by raising taxes is a drag on the economy, and could cause a double-dip recession (though at this point it's more likely that it would just slow the ongoing recovery). However, rebalancing the budget by killing off expensive, wasteful, or duplicative programs instead would have a salutory effect on the economy and (inherently) on personal liberty. (If you need an explanation of why that is, look here.)

Posted by Jeff at March 12, 2004 05:04 PM | Link Cosmos