Dem Senator on Speaker Pelosi's National Energy Tax: "We Don't Want to Be a Sucker"
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Posted on Monday, July 13, 2009 4:15:06 PM by Sub-Driver
Dem Senator on Speaker Pelosi's National Energy Tax: "We Don't Want to Be a Sucker" Blowback From the Energy Tax Vote Back Home Leaves Heartland Dems "Rattled"
Washington, Jul 13 - As the House Democratic Leadership tries to gather support for their massive small business tax and government takeover of health care, they are finding reluctance from many in their own caucus. Why? Well, many Democrats who walked the plank and voted for the Speaker’s unpopular national energy tax faced a blistering reaction back home, and the Senate looks unlikely to act on the legislation – meaning House Democrats got “BTU-ed” all over again.
Roll Call this morning reported on the Democratic House Members’ unease, and the hurdle it is creating:
“Democrats who helped the sweeping climate change bill squeak through before jetting home for the July Fourth break got a surprisingly ugly homecoming, encountering a barrage of protests, attack ads and negative press. Police turned up at a local protest aimed at Rep. Allen Boyd (Fla.), a leader of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition. Freshman Rep. John Adler (N.J.) told a local paper he got shoved.”
“The bruising endured by the moderates — along with serious substantive concerns —prompted them last week to derail the planned Friday rollout of the health care bill. And it presents a continuing challenge to leaders hoping to wrap work on the package this month. ‘They are completely and totally rattled,’ one senior Democratic aide said of the centrists. ‘I’ve never seen them as bad as they are now.’”
Those Democrats are right to be worried, since Politico finds little enthusiasm for Speaker Pelosi’s national energy tax in the Senate:
“President Barack Obama’s plan for climate change legislation faces an extraordinarily tough climb in the Senate. For proof, look no further than to some of Obama’s closest allies.”
“‘We’ve got to be very careful with what we do with this legislation,’ Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a near—constant cable surrogate during Obama’s presidential campaign, told Missouri talk radio show host Mike Ferguson last week. ‘We need to be a leader in the world, but we don’t want to be a sucker.’”
“When it comes to climate change, McCaskill and other Midwestern Democrats are putting their home-state concerns ahead of one of the president’s biggest first-year priorities; many of them fear that the legislation, which narrowly passed the House earlier this month, will hurt manufacturing- and coal-dependent areas that are already struggling.”
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