US Politics and Tax Cuts: Sanders' Remarkable 8 1/2-Hour "BernieBuster" Challenges Republicans...and Obama

EA's US Politics Correspondent Lee Haddigan writes:

It promises to be a hectic week in Washington. This session of Congress is scheduled to end for the Christmas break on Friday, but with a slew of legislative matters still to be decided, this date is beginning to look optimistic. Among the issues to be addressed are the extension of the 2003 Bush tax cuts, a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown, possible ratification of the START treaty with Russia. Democrats, while they retain a majority in the House, will also try to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell restriction on gays and lesbians in the US military and to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act.

The first part of the week will be dominated by the tax cut question, with Republicans refusing to legislate on any other matter until this issue is resolved. Last week President Obama announced he had negotiated a compromise with Republican congressional leaders to extend temporarily the tax cuts due to expire on 1 January, limit the estate tax to inheritances over $5 million ($10 million for a couple), cut the payroll tax by nearly a third, and extend unemployment benefits for 13 months.

Obama’s seemingly meek surrender to Republican demands that extension of the tax cuts include incomes above $250,000 infuriated many of the liberal members of his party. Facing a potential revolt among House Democrats when the compromise came up for a vote this week, Obama rolled out Bill Clinton on Friday to add the former president’s support to his contention that this deal was the best Democrats could realistically achieve.

Both Obama and Clinton both --- and, in a bizarre moment, Clinton by himself after Obama left the stage to attend a function –-- argued that tax cuts for the ordinary middle-class family could not be threatened by playing "Mexican standoff" politics in Washington. Republicans, they maintained, would not extend the middle-class tax cuts unless the uppe- income earners were also included, a position they were able to adopt because of their new majority in the House come January. Republicans would have let the tax cuts expire, hurting everyone, and then made the business of making the tax cuts permanent for everyone the first order of business of the new Congress. Under his compromise, Obama explained, tax cuts for the wealthiest were only extended for two years, allowing Democrats the possibility of raising taxes on the richest Americans later.

Despite some hostile immediate reactions from progressives, including a non-binding resolution by the House Democratic Caucus that they would not even consider voting on the deal unless it was amended, Obama appeared to have won the argument within his party by Sunday. David Axelrod, the senior Presidential adviser, appeared on three different talk shows confident the House would vote yes on the compromise without amendments, and he promised recalcitrant Democrats that, with a stronger economy in 2012, President Obama would look to make tax cuts on the highest earners permanent. Axelrod’s and White House optimism that the deal would survive opposition in the House was lent weight by comments made by Representative Chris Van Hollen, originallly a leading voice against the provisions included in the deal . Van Hollen indicated that the House Democrat leadership, who in an extreme situation could have refused to even allow the deal onto the floor for a vote, were now resigned to passing the compromise with little or no revision.

But a remarkable piece of political theatre that took place on the floor of the Senate on Friday has energised opposition within some circles to the compromise. At 10:24 a.m., Bernie Sanders, the 69-year old Independent senator form Vermont, began a speech criticising the compromise as a “bad deal” for Americans. Eight and a half hours later, without eating or even sitting, Sanders concluded what became instantly known as the #filibernie on Twitter, where the speech trended Number 1 worldwide on Friday afternoon. While he was speaking the filibernie.com and berniesandersisstilltalking.com websites sprung up, and at the former the whole speech is still available on video with the comment: "Because somewhere on the internet this deserves to be looping forever...."

What was most remarkable about the speech –-- it was not technically a filibuster as it did not hold up a specific piece of legislation –-- is that he did not resort to gimmicks to keep his argument going. The 124- page transcript reveals that he used facts and figures throughout to enumerate his opposition to the tax cuts. At one point he claimed that the top 1% of Americans earn more than 23% of U.S. income, and shortly (while the speech was still continuing) politifact.com tweeted #filibernie with a link to their site explaining they had checked the facts and concluded:

So, we're left with three studies that vary slightly but which all point in the same general direction -- showing the top 1 percent earning between 21.4 and 23.5 percent of the national income in 2007. The studies also show that this share exceeds what the entire bottom 50 percent of the United States earns. So we rate Sanders' statement True.

At 5.24 p.m., seven hours into the "Berniebuster", the longest-serving Independent in congressional history still possessed the stamina to cite research from the Center for Responsive Politics showing lobbyists were “flooding this institution with money". Sanders bellowed, “Overall, they found that in 2009, the number of registered lobbyists who actively lobbied Congress was 13,649, and the total lobbying spending -- get this -- the total lobbying spending in 2009 was $3.47 billion."

Sanders’ speech was delivered before an empty Senate, with only a few tourists sitting in the balcony watching history. But the romantic connection of Sanders with Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" --- the outsider, and new hero of the Left, defying the corrupted establishment  --- reached an audience over the internet that will not soon forget his fortitude. (One popular joke on Twitter went “New pickup line: "Baby, I can go all night like Bernie Sanders." #filibernie”)

If this tax cut passes without amendment, as it seems likely to do, and if Sanders’ efforts were in vain, Obama will find it almost impossible in the future to counter the accusation he is not a sell-out to the progressive cause. Harsh, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Long after many Americans forget exactly what issue Bernie Sanders was opposing, they will remember that President Obama was the "establishment insider" that bilked the honourable efforts ( 8 and a half hours without a toilet break!!) of the senator from Vermont. Statues have been erected for less.

Whatever the result of the vote on the tax cuts, the result is sure to foster partisan resentment and the desire for some sort of recrimination. The reality is, however,, that immediately after the vote the two parties in Congress will have to find a way to work out a compromise to prevent a government shutdown. The continuing resolution that is currently funding government operations expires at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday. The House of Represenatives narrowly passed a new "Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011" last Wednesday, which would keep the government running until next October, but there is no guarantee that it will not be amended in the Senate where Republicans are looking only for a stopgap measure that expires in January. 

Complicating matters, Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, allegedly “incensed over President Obama’s tax compromise”, ambushed the Administration late on Wednesday night by attaching a provision to the continuing resolution that effectively prevents the shutting of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. It removed any funding for trying suspects in civilian courts instead of military commissions. Attorney General Eric Holder called on the Senate to strip the provision as it impinged upon the powers of the executive, writing “We have been unable to identify any parallel...in the history of our nation in which Congress has intervened to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes.”

The likelihood is that some kind of measure will be cobbled together to keep the government funded. But the discussions over a continuing resolution, and the contentious floor battle over tax cuts, mean there will be little time left, if any, for Democrats to address three other issues. More on those tomorrow....