Lame Duck Session

ok, so now that my rage has mitigated a bit at the Republican takeover in the House, i hope at the very least the dems can find it in themselves to make this last lame duck session the most productive one in history. why not? what do they have to lose? there are three things they can do, or at least TRY to do:

1. Pass a permanent extension of middle class tax cuts only
2. Pass the defense bill that has within it the repeal of DADT
3. Pass the DREAM Act

of these items, the one i think they may actually pull off is DADT, believe it or not. there are signs that this actually will pass the senate in december. the big study they did is expected to show that 70% of the troops believe it would be ok to allow gay service members to serve openly, so i think that the study will give cover to a couple of republicans (they only need 1 or 2), probably Scott Brown or Olympia Snowe, to not filibuster. i have a bit of optimism on that.

the other two i'm not so sure. the Dream Act is the down payment on immigration reform- it allows minors a pathway to citizenship if they join the civil service i believe. i don't think this is that controversial, but i'm not sure if this has even passed the House yet. i also don't think it's gotten much attention. to my mind the only reason for a filibuster of something like this is the fear that it will go that much further toward solidifying the latino vote with the democrats. but, that's already happening- the only polls that underestimated the democratic likely vote in the elections were just about every state on the west coast and in the southwest especially. the tightest races were california, nevada and colorado, and in every single one the dem won by higher than expected, and it turned out to be due to the underestimated latino turnout. i think if they manage to pass immigration reform (which won't happen when the GOP takes over), it solidifies that base pretty solidly. maybe even comparable to the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960s. otherwise, this could pass this session since it's not the whole thing, just a piece of it, and it involves kids for christ's sake. and who knows, even if it doesn't- it might help the Dems anyway, to have it visibly defeated by the republicans.

and the worst one, those tax cuts. sigh. imo, this SHOULDN'T be that difficult, and it won't be for the House, which is now saying they are going to vote on just the middle class ones alone. but the problem, as always, lies in the senate, where i'm pretty sure the entire GOP is deadset against this in any way. they love their tax cuts for rich people and they don't want to let them go. i think they likely WILL filibuster a tax cut for the middle class for this purpose, even if it looks horrible for them. and they say they're going to hold UI benefits hostage for the jobless for this purpose as well. it's pretty awful if you ask me. but basically, i would say have the House pass the middle class ones, and then just bring it up in the Senate and let them do what they do. have it play out in public- that the GOP blocks even a vote on permanent middle class tax cuts, over and over and over. it may well backfire on them. i personally don't think it would look that good for them to be seen defeating and blocking tax cuts (supposedly their favorite thing ever) over and over again, and for 98% of americans at that. once more (because it can't be said enough) for the purpose of giving the RICH another, even bigger tax cut, which by the way, would add $700 billion to the deficit. but they probably think they can wait it out, because the december session is only 3 weeks long and it just wouldn't leave enough time for maybe one of them to cave in the face of awful public branding. the Dems would ultimately give in rather than let tax cuts expire for everyone. it'd definitely be a face-off over what each party stands for. so, i'm not sure what's gonna happen on this, my fear is that the Dems are a little too afraid of risking the expiration of all tax cuts if the Republicans don't blink. unfortunately, that is what would happen. you have to be able to bet one of them would cave, and who knows, maybe Scott Brown would. (MA does NOT prefer to favor the rich and this guy is up for re-election in that very liberal state in 2012). it's gonna require 100% unity and some balls on the part of the Democrats in the Senate, which leaves me feeling pessimistic, esp if they do manage to get the DADT repeal through.