Daily Archives: 13 March 2026

Tax-Addicted Progressive-Democrats

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Party has never seen a tax or an increase in existing taxes they don’t like. Washington and New York present examples.

Washington demonstrates the desperation for ever more tax fixes that Party needs to feed its collective addiction for OPM. The State’s Party is determined to impose a 9.9% tax on household income over $1 million a year.

On Monday lawmakers in Olympia pulled an all-nighter to push through the legislation, which [Progressive-]Democratic Governor Bob Ferguson has said he will sign. The bill passed the House 51-46 and goes back to the state Senate.

Never mind that the State’s citizens have repeatedly rejected income taxes in referendum after referendum. What do Party politicians care about the wishes of the small people of their State.

Never mind, either, that the State’s constitution forbids any form of income tax. What do Party politicians care about laws, however foundational, that get in their way?

And never mind that the State’s Senate Majority Leader, Manka Dhingra (D), campaigned for office on her opposition to income taxes, and now in office, actively supports this one. What do Party politicians care about truth or honesty?

Next is New York.

Democratic senators want to increase the state’s top income tax rate by 0.5 percentage points on households making more than $5 million. That would raise the top state-and-local rate in New York City to 15.3%. They also propose to raise the state’s corporate tax to 9% from 7.25% on businesses with more than $5 million income and let New York City raise its corporate tax rate to 10.62% from 8.85%. All told, large businesses would pay a nearly 20% tax rate in New York City.

And this one:

Governor Kathy Hochul, Democratic legislators, and union leaders held a rally over the weekend in support of rolling back the state’s 2012 pension reforms that raised the retirement age to 63 and requires workers to contribute between 3% and 6% of their paychecks to their pensions. “I’m fighting for a fair pension plan,” the Governor declared.

I’m not sure France is a useful model to emulate in the areas of work and retirement.

Taxes are a far more powerful addiction for Party politicians than are nicotine, or sugar, or opioids for us average Americans. Worse, Party’s addiction is severely damaging to our nation, whereas nicotine, sugar, and opioid addictions do their primary damage to the users.

Talking Filibuster

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It’s complicated, claims Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R, SD), and it’s a mirage claim the editors at The Wall Street Journal.

Thune:

The talking filibuster idea “is much more complicated and risky than people are assuming,” Majority Leader John Thune told reporters this week. He said Tuesday that Republicans lack the votes to get to a talking filibuster or sustain one if they did.

The editors:

The reality is that Democratic Senators could take turns giving interminable speeches. Cory Booker last year went 25 hours all by himself. Meantime, Republicans would have to keep most of their Senators handy at all times, ready to answer a quorum call, meaning it would turn into an endless GOP campout. Bring your pajamas, toothbrush, and CPAP machine.

And

Democrats could offer amendments that either undermine the bill’s intent or put swing-state Republicans on the spot. Raise the minimum wage? Extend ObamaCare subsidies? What else?

The editors are straight up wrong with their claims, though. Look past this poster’s over-the-top polemics, and look at the facts presented. Under existing Senate rules, Senators are limited to two speeches per day on a particular piece of legislation. A Senate day, though, isn’t 24 hours; it runs from Senate adjournment to Senate adjournment. Recesses don’t count. And recesses could be had for hygiene breaks, grabbing a drink of water, eating something, etc. All Thune would have to do is not adjourn the Senate once the SAVE Act is brought to the floor until it’s voted on.

Endless amendment proffers? The Majority Leader controls the amendment process, including being first to offer amendments. Just as Reid did routinely (and other Majority Leaders of either party), Thune could fill the amendment tree with his own amendments, preventing the Progressive-Democratic Party, and Precious Republicans, from offering their own amendments. That imposes a small and finite number of amendments and votes on them.

Do the “camping,” but it would be only for a week or two. The limiting factor is those Republicans themselves. Republicans lack the votes to get to a talking filibuster or sustain one if they did? As recently as mid-February, the Republicans had 50 votes for the Act, which with the Vice President’s vote, is all he majority they need. Is Thune really saying he can’t hold his caucus together in the face of Progressive-Democrat intransigence? If so, that, in the eventuality, would be the end of the Republican Party for a long sequence of election cycles, as they would be exposing themselves as not having the stomach for serious struggle.

The editors rationalized their position with this cover excuse for those Reluctant Republicans’ timidity:

Democrats would have done it [used the talking filibuster] already—and they’d certainly copy the maneuver next time to pass far more transformational bills than the SAVE America Act.

That’s not an excuse for timidity; it’s simply stating a fact. The Progressive-Democrats most assuredly will use it, whether or not they eliminate the cloture vote filibuster when next they get a Senate majority. Republicans using it now is irrelevant to that.

General George Patton:

Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.

That appears to be not the case with today’s crop of Republicans, if Thune is right.