Roadblock Blog

Republicans Roadblock Tax Reform to Close in on Roadblock Record

The Republicans … well, they aren’t even pretending anymore. They don’t have any principles worthy of the name, since “getting more of us elected and/or in choice lobbying jobs” doesn’t count as a principle.

For years, the bedrock rhetorical principle of the GOP was “lower taxes for the middle class.” Which was always baloney because what they really wanted was lower taxes for the rich. But, they usually managed to throw a bone to the middle class in all of their tax bills for political cover.

But now, they blocked crucial reform to the Alternative Minimum Tax, causing 21.5 million Americans to get caught in the AMT and have to pay higher taxes. These are now people who didn’t get the benefits of the irresponsible Bush tax cuts for the rich, forced to pay more in taxes because of the Roadblocks of the Republicans.

If they had any souls, they’d be ashamed.

And, by forcing the Democrats to invoke cloture to cut off debate, the Republican filibuster (and that’s what it is if they force a cloture vote) gets the Republicans closer to a dubious record: They are now only five filibusters away from breaking the record for filibusters. That’s in the first year in a two-year Congress. That’s like a baseball player hitting 73 home runs before the All-Star break, as Harry Reid pointed out. Not even the finest steroids can get anyone to pull that off.

And that, my friends, is why they are Roadblock Republicans. They’d rather block than do anything to help anyone. They literally block things just to block them. They offer no alternatives, no counter-proposal, no ideas. Just blocking, blocking, blocking.

They’re pathetic.