Giving Away The Store

Harry Reid lays down the law.  No really.  Handing the bill over to Max Baucus who insisted the Senate Finance committee get a crack at making the bill bipartisan, Baucus loaded the bill up with massive tax cuts for the wealthy to get Republican support, and promises of even more tax cuts later.  Ezra Klein:

In other words, in order to get Republic cooperation on an $80 billion jobs bill, Democrats have promised them estate and gift tax reform, which will come to many hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the compromise that appears to have led to this package: not a better or bigger or more tax-focused jobs bill, but massive tax cuts for the rich.

Harry actually did his job and told Max and the Republicans to go to hell.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is rewriting a jobs bill after Democrats complained of too many concessions to Republicans.

Reid announced Thursday that he would cut drastically back on the jobs bill Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced only hours earlier, essentially overruling the powerful chairman.

The Finance Committee estimated that Reid’s proposal would cost approximately $15 billion.

The Baucus bill, which was estimated at $85 billion, included $31 billion in tax extenders that Reid has decided to leave out. A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Reid decided to drop the tax extenders after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declined to endorse the Baucus package.

“We’re going to move this afternoon to a smaller package than talked about in the press,” Reid said.

A spokesperson for Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee and the co-sponsor of the Baucus bill, said Reid’s move risks turning a bipartisan bill into another partisan vote.

Republicans are pissed.  And remember, Mitch McConnell turned down the "bi-partisan" Baucus bill because it didn't have enough tax cuts for corporations and for the wealthy in it.  He wanted a 100% victory, not promises of estate tax reform later.

Fine.  Let them vote against the jobs bill in an election year with 9.7% unemployment.

But for once, the real news is Harry Reid did the right thing.