Jim Martin: “Instead of staging events for the DNC, how about actually passing a budget?”

(Alexandria, Virginia) – Senate Democrats lost a vote but gained a campaign stunt in their attempt to enact a tax surcharge on higher-end income earners yesterday evening by a tally of 51-45, with 60 votes required for actual passage.  The so-called “Buffet Rule” would raise taxes on businesses and investment income during a down economy, something President Obama has on numerous occasions said he would not do.

60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, leader of the nation’s largest conservative seniors organization with over 7.1 million senior supporters weighed-in on the vote, saying, “It would be nice if Harry Reid and his Democrat colleagues would use the Senate floor for something other than as a staging ground for the Obama re-election campaign,” said Martin. “For over 1,050 days, the Democrat majority in the United States Senate has failed to submit or pass a budget, yet they have time to stage a vote they know won’t pass, know won’t create one single job, or help one single senior citizen.

“Millions of seniors live on investment income, and they would be devastated if this surtax were actually enacted.  For the party that says they care about seniors, sending them to the poor house is an odd way to show it, to say the least.

“Investment capital is the lifeblood of any growing economy and the worst possible thing you could do is tax it, but doing the worst thing possible to our economy has consistently been the Democrat policy for nearly the last four years.  This vote was political theatre, pure and simple, and another example of how Senate Democrats are focused on taking down the GOP, and not working to actually make things better, fix a problem, or help people.

“Senator Schumer’s (D-NY) admission that they will ‘come back to this repeatedly’ when the outcome will be exactly the same demonstrates in the clearest possible way that Democrats have no intention of actually leading or doing their jobs.  Sadly, there is going to be eight more months of this until help arrives in November. “

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