Where was the tax vote BEFORE the elections? What am I missing?!?!

[HardWorkingDem]

Am I the only one that is disappointed in Congressional Democrats in their push for the tax extension votes AFTER the election?

Really, does this not show a symbolic lack of spine? Or am I missing something?

Here they are holding a vote that really is meaningless, when if they had done this before the Nov elections, maybe it would have had more bite to it.

Maybe someone has some sort of insight that I'm missing, but what good is it going to do? We can probably all see the writing on the wall - the lame ducks will probably cave to the 1 million and under part and then, what? I don't get why these Democrats didn't try this before the election. Maybe if they had, they could have saved at least a few House seats.

[stray cat]

1. Why would it have passed then given the current votes -it's the same players

[Andy823]

3. What I think is

Some republicans would have had to explain their NO vote to the voters and may have voted YES. Right now they don't stand to lose anything, like their job, so they don't care. They will have six more years before they have to "explain" things, and they know that by then voters will have forgotten! This should have been voted on "before" the elections and if it didn't pass, if republicans stopped it, those running for re-election may have NOT been re-elected! It was a huge mistake by democrats not to push this before the elections!

[HardWorkingDem]

4. So what is it that we regular folk are missing?

This is something I just can't figure out - there was nothing to lose for the Democrats to do this before the election (at least nothing I can figure), so why didn't they do it before?

Frankly, doing it now seems to be showing their lack of spine loud and clear, but for some reason they can't see it or are ignoring it.

It almost makes me think the reason they really did it was to only protect THEIR own tax cuts - that if they waited until after the elections, then all of them would also be able to get their own extensions.

[Skink]

2. You don't expect the dems to stand for something do you?