Speaker Pelosi pulled a brilliant move at the end of the last weeks legislative session.
House Democrats are home for a long Memorial Day break with a gift-wrapped wedge issue delivered just in time for district campaigning. One of their final actions before adjourning late Friday was passing a measure that would strip tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas by a 215-204 vote.
That's right, in the pursuit of that shiny object of tax cuts for Corporations (even Corporations that outsource jobs!) every Republican House Rep except Joesph Cao of Louisiana and the average 35 Blue Dogs decided that companies that outsource jobs amidst near 10% unemployment is more of something we MUST have, and they MUST be rewarded with tax cuts!
As speaker Pelosi said recently . . .
"In this legislation, which is job creating, it closes the loophole which has allowed businesses to ship jobs overseas. Can you believe that we have a tax policy that enables outsourcing? So, if you have one thing to say about this bill to your constituents, you can say that today, you voted to close the loophole to ship US jobs overseas and giving businesses a tax break to do so," House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi told the lawmakers before the voting process started on Friday last week. "It is not right. It will be corrected today."
The proposal, expected to cost nearly $112 billion, will be discussed by the Senate during week of June 7 after Congress' Memorial Day recess.
Seizing on the win in the Special Election for PA-12, Democratic Leadership has decided that outsourcing is the wedge issue voters are going to care about more than social issues, and it is a good bet in my book.
And Democratic strategists agree.
Democratic campaign types are thrilled with the timing of the vote, saying the outsourcing issue gives candidates the perfect platform to repeat Mark Critz's successful campaign that helped him win the special election in Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional district earlier this month. One Democrat said the Republican opposition to addressing outsourcing "will be a clear line in the sand" that members are being asked to highlight back home next week.
"They are voting against jobs," the Democrat said in a preview of television attack ads and pressure campaigns Republicans can expect this week.
Whether this bill makes it through the Senate is not certain, but either way, it is a win/win. If the bill passes the Senate the tax incentive to outsource much needed American jobs will be closed and anyone who vote against it (certainly the Grand Outsourcing Party and the usual ConservaDem suspect).
If this vote fails, Democrats can not only cement the image of the Party Of NO!, but they can give the public the perfect people to blame for it, the people who deserve the blame, which is the Corporatist Republicans and their merry band of Blue Dogs from the Republican wing of the Democratic party, who are always happy to lick peanutbutter from the naughty places of job outsourcing Corporations (or any Big Businesses for that matter).
I do not want to see this bill fail, and I don't think it will. We are too close to an election for Senators who are facing elections to vote for job outsourcing, and I suspect a few Republicans in the Senate will vote with the Dem majority, but I am also certain that most won't. They are Republicans and these are tax loopholes we are talking about after all.
But as for Speaker Pelosi and the Dem Leadership in the House, this is a move of sheer brilliance, and a total Win/Win. They all deserve our support and applause.
Brilliant!
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