While You Were Voting

by Stuart Shapiro

Obviously the big and fun news yesterday was all the crazies winning primary elections, a lot else was going on yesterday in the world of policy and politics.

• The Senate voted for cloture on the small business tax cut and incentives bill.  While $30 billion is not much, it should add some needed stimulus to the economy.  Two Republicans, George Voinovich and George Lemieux, crossed party lines to clinch the bill’s passage.

• Republicans in the Senate signaled support for extending all of the Bush tax cuts for two years.  As TPM points out, this leaves the Democrats in a strong position.  If they just craft a bill extending the middle class cuts indefinitely and the upper class cuts for two years, they pretty much cement the end of the upper class cuts in 2013.  I’d rather see them end immediately for deficit reduction purposes but could live with this.

• Signals grew stronger that President Obama is going to appoint Elizabeth Warren as head of the Consumer Protection Financial Agency.

Between these policy outcomes and the results in Delaware, its the best day for the Democrats since they passed financial reform.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.