The Nelsons. No, not the crappy singing duo with the long white hair. The senators from Nebraska and Florida, playing like swing votes:
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who is up for reelection in 2012, has supported raising taxes on millionaires but was still weighing whether he’d support higher taxes on those who make more than $200,000 a year, said spokesman Dan McLaughlin.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a key moderate who’s up for reelection next year, didn’t mince words: “There’s too much discussion about raising taxes right now, not enough focus on cutting spending.”
Good thing budgets only need fifty senators to pass. Then again, they also need to pass the House of Representatives, and the House seems determined to play chicken. See, it doesn’t matter what the president proposes. He’s not in charge of Congress, while for some reason he takes all the heat and outrage. If you want to change the system, then Congress is where it lives.
So by all means, let’s have mass protests — but please, just for once, I’d like to see progressives act like they understand basic civics. It is my fondest hope that, should a Main Street movement happen, its organizers do to the Capitol Dome what Winsconsinites did to their state house.
