Mitch puts hedge fund managers before working families

Today the DSCC issued this press release:

Twice In Two Days McConnell Votes For Higher Taxes
Blocks lower taxes for families, students, and teachers; opposes alternatives to Big Oil, clean coal projects

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted today against a bill that would prevent tax increases on millions of families, businesses, and entrepreneurs who are trying to develop alternatives to oil and gas after voting against a similar House version of the legislation yesterday. The legislation included extensions of a broad range of tax provisions due to expire, incentives for new energy technologies that would help break America’s dependence on oil, disaster relief for communities struck by floods, fires, and storms, and the most significant health care reform bill in a decade.

“Kentuckians know that the one thing they can count on Mitch McConnell for is consistent opposition to any meaningful help for their families,” DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. “At a time when Kentuckians are struggling under the failed Bush-McConnell economic policies of the past eight years, McConnell voted against lightening their load. The pattern of Mitch McConnell turning his back on the people of Kentucky is always predictable and always disappointing.”

The wide-ranging Jobs, Energy, Families, and Disaster Relief Act would prevent billions of dollars in tax increases by extending existing provisions such as the tuition tax deduction, deductions for teachers who spend their own money on classroom supplies, and the research and development tax credit. It includes a number of provisions to help break America’s dependence on oil, like tax breaks for renewable energy development and improved energy efficiency, and demonstration projects for clean coal technology. The bill would help residents and small business owners in 26 states struck by natural disasters in 2008, including Kentucky, and would save approximately 380,000 jobs and $14 billion in funding for state road and bridge projects by fixing the highway trust fund. Legislation to end insurance discrimination against mental illnesses, the product of six years of House and Senate work, and a one-year fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax were also rolled into the package that McConnell helped kill today.

The bill would have paid for most of the tax provisions by forcing hedge fund managers to pay income tax on earnings from offshore holdings the same year the income is earned and by delaying implementation of a tax break for multinational corporations that has never taken effect.

Twice in Two Days McConnell Voted Against Tax Breaks. This was the second time in two days McConnell voted against similar legislation to provide tax breaks for average families. [Vote 190, 7/29/08; Vote 192, 7/30/08]