last two years. the president, himself, has been making that very argument that we should be putting the money in the hands of the middle class and folks in the lower class because they are likely the ones who are going to spend more. all of a sudden the president changes his tune, because republicans made it clear they were not going to budge at all from that. in his news conference the following day, he made the comment about this whole notion of the holy grail. therefore, he decided to goo along with the short term extension of the tax cuts. one of the reasons democrats are so angry is because of the estate tax provision. the house earlier passed the extension in terms of the certain cap the president in the negotiations raised it to 5 and 10 million. democrats said, where did that come from? that s why you see this anger between house democrats and the
it. it s working it is working. 81 senators voted for it today. you got to give biden a lot of credit for that. he s a beloved figure, not just respected. the speaker said tonight she wants to change the estate tax provision but she s only speaker for a few more weeks. can she rattle up enough votes? that s going to be the thing we ll look for tomorrow. there will be a couple of votes in the house tomorrow. one with a minor change to the estate tax provision which we talked about almost every night on here to make it basically less generous to wealthy americans. and then the package that passed the senate today. the open question is whether the argument that the president has been making is going to prevail and whether enough people who are still upset about this are just going to say, we want to get this done with and we want to go home. this is the big thing they re fighting about now, the tax cut compromise. what about everything else in why is it so acrimonious? you
the president s bill without delay. some house liberal want changes to estate tax provision and worry the 2% payroll tax holiday hurts security. pelosi postponed debate until thursday and instead focussed on repealing don t ask, don t tell. let s make america safer. reporter: as they juggled host of issues, senate democrats hit accelerator. ewell a be in session this sunday. we hope we can complete what we have to do here. a day or two after saturday. reporter: senate, first moved to start ii treaty with russia, but minute minute minute threatened to have the jim demint threatened to have the treaty read allowed which could take 10 or 15 hours. so harry reid backed down. they ridiculed them shoving so much in so little time. staying here to use christmas holiday as backdrop makes the democratic
majority of republicans, i should say. would there be enough house democrats to carry it over? it violates a basic tenant of running the house, a majority of the majority. that s how they work it in the house, and obviously, they don t have that steny hoyer, mixed signals coming from house democrats. the majority leader, the number two says, we have no choice but to accept the package. s there a full court press going on here at the white house. we saw the chairman of the council of economic advisers, a very unusual video, austan goolsbee. he had basically two ledgers. he said what the president got out of this compromise for a outweighs what republicans, how they would benefit and their constituencies would benefit. of course,s there this liberal outcry. not only over extending the tax cuts to the rich, but they felt they were blindsided by the estate tax provision. no one knew about it until monday after the deal had already been cut. we saw the president early today. he was at an ev
on this important matter. somehow progress i was are planning to fight the deal s estate tax provision. if i was a democrat in the house, i would in a second. as predict add week ago, the president is on the verge of one compromise victory. what about the other struggles still ahead? federal judge in virginia struck down toy a key part of the president s health care law. the new s.t.a.r.t. nuclear arms treaty. i reject. i m lawrence o donnell. another big legislative victory for the president. this one bipartisan as the obama compromise on the bush tax rates moves one step closer to becoming law of the senate voted today to proceed to vote as early as tomorrow. enall, only 10 democrats and five republicans voted against allowing the bill to proceed. the house democratic leadership is still trying to secure a consensus before they vote on