GOP Demands Jobs Bill Include Billions In Tax Breaks For The Wealthy & White House Goes Along-- Harry Reid Puts His Foot Down

Progressives and populists in Washington-- I know, I know, but there are a few-- and people all over America who think corrupt politicians have given away enough of the store to the damned banksters let out a collective moan yesterday when two of the most corrupt politicians to ever prowl K Street, Max Baucus (D-MT-$4,763,037) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA-$2,540,450), unveiled a corporate feeding frenzy of a piece of crap legislative initiative under the guise of a jobs bill. The bill sucks from every possible angle except two: (1) It is "bipartisan" (i.e., the party afraid of being in the majority, and about to lose that status, gave the party that behaves as though, regardless of votes, it is the permanent majority party everything it wanted), and (2) it is completely larded up with goodies for Wall Street and Big Business, who, as we know, finance the political careers of the craven political hacks who are the United States Senate.

The White House loved it, of course. The guy who, in true bipartisan fashion, doesn't begrudge bank robbers like Blankfein and Dimon their take sent this out:

The President is gratified to see the Senate moving forward in a bipartisan manner on steps to help put Americans back to work. The draft bill released today by Senators Baucus and Grassley includes several of the President’s top priorities for job creation, including a tax incentive to encourage businesses to hire, a tax cut to make it easier for small businesses to invest and expand, further measures to keep people at work repairing our nation’s roads and bridges, and extended unemployment insurance and health care assistance for Americans who are out of work.

The American people want to see Washington put aside partisan differences and make progress on jobs. The House has already passed a constructive set of measures and the President is hopeful that the draft language presented today will lead to a bipartisan Senate bill. The President looks forward to working with members from both parties on this bill and on the additional job creation measures he has identified, including incentives for energy efficiency investments and increased access to credit for small businesses.

Now, I was just about to start singing hosannas to Harry Reid, who almost immediately did scrap the crap, diplomatically calling it "confusing." Despite profuse support from Wall Street, the White House and the GOP (or is that all redundant?), Reid put his foot down on the side of average working American families. It was good Reid did that, because it stops a giveaway of billions in breaks to the very richest few families in America, the ones who already grabbed everything when Bush was president. But I decided to hold the hosannas when I noticed that he killed the effort to reform the filibuster. (His rationale-- that it just can't be done-- is completely wrong. Last week Jerry Nadler laid out exactly how it would be done procedurally for me when I ran into him. Maybe I should try to get him and Reid on a call.)