Unless Reid/Dems deal with the budget and upcoming tax increases first. Great job!

GOP threatens to stall Senate action
By: Manu Raju
Politico.com
December 1, 2010 09:33 AM EST

Senate Republicans are vowing to block all legislative business until Democrats hold votes on bills to extend the Bush-era tax cuts and keep the government funded through the new year.

A letter signed by all 42 Republicans warns that they will filibuster attempts to bring forward any bill besides those two measures. That could further complicate Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's desire to complete a laundry list of other bills in the final weeks of the 111th Congress.

Citing the nation's high unemployment rate and the desire to "focus on creating an environment for private-sector job growth," Republicans are telling Reid that they "will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and [they] have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers."

"With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities," the letter said. "While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike."

The move was discussed by GOP leaders during a meeting Monday evening, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged his colleagues to sign the letter at a lunch Tuesday. If all Republicans agree to this maneuver, it will prevent the Senate from reaching the 60 votes needed to kill a GOP filibuster and advance legislation.

That could imperil a 9/11 first responders bill, an immigration measure known as the DREAM Act, the ratification of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia and a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits gays from serving openly in the military.

On the floor Wednesday morning, Reid called the GOP tactic “very cynical, but very obvious [and] very transparent.”

“With this letter, they have simply put in writing the political strategy that the Republicans pursued this entire Congress, namely, obstruct, delay; obstruct, delay action on critical matters and then blame the Democrats for not addressing the needs of the American people,” he said.

Reid said that the Senate will soon get a short-term stopgap funding bill to keep the government operating beyond Dec. 3, and a longer-term appropriations bill along with a bipartisan deal on the Bush tax cuts — which expire at year’s end — is still not close to being completed.

“I wish I could report we’re close to wrapping up action on these bills,” Reid said. “But we’re not.”