Unemployment benefits and tax cuts for the middle class failed today in the Senate because four Democrats and all Republicans voted no. The Democrats, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Jim Webb (D-VA), may feel the tax cuts need to expire because of the national debt. The Republicans and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), on the other hand, voted it down because the tax cuts were not across the board, they didn’t include the wealthiest Americans.
Obama, who has stated all along he supports tax cuts to the middle class, rather than fight for and rally the votes, instead slinked out town, under cover of darkness, for an unexpected four hour visit to Afghanistan irritating the country’s head of state, Hamid Karzai. His visit was so unexpected one high level head of state quipped, ‘We don’t even know who issued his visa’.
Claiming bad weather, Obama also skipped out on a meeting with Hamid Karzai, who had been the subject of embarrassing memos via Cablegate. He did manage to fire off the obligatory platitudes to the troops, “Today we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control,” he said.
‘Concern and anger’
Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from Kabul, said there was “some concern and some anger” that Obama was not visiting the presidential palace.
“We spoke a short time ago to a high-level source in the presidential palace and he said they actually had some journalists on hand to film a news conference with the two presidents,” he said.
“This high-level source very close to President Karzai, told me that there was real concern, real anger, that the president of a country with 100,000 troops in this country wouldn’t come and see the president of the host country.
“He even quipped at the end of the call: ‘We don’t even know who issued his visa’.”
Bays said that there were “perfectly clear skies above Kabul” despite US officials blaming the weather for the snub.
Ending the Bush tax cuts is a good thing but loading the bill to include an extension of jobless benefits for people long out of work means the economy will continue to suffer. Unemployment benefits are proven to show an immediate stimulating effect to the economy.
