Republicans Vote Down Lowering Taxes and Eliminating Paperwork

...Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the new 1099 reporting requirements included in the healthcare reform bill should be repealed. ...The problem is that the new requirements essentially raise taxes on contractors and small businesses and this raises revenue. So if you want to repeal the requirements, you need to figure out how to make up the revenue, and Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on how to do this.

Yesterday, however, Sen. Max Baucus decided the hell with it. The amount of revenue is tiny (less than $2 billion per year), so why not just repeal the 1099 provision, lower everyone's taxes, and forget about paying for it? This is an eminently sensible position, since Republicans want the provision repealed and have repeatedly and unanimously taken the position that tax cuts don't need to be paid for.

So Baucus introduced an amendment to do the deed. And it failed because all but two Republicans voted against it.

Suck it up, small business! Republicans insist that NOTHING BE CHANGED IN THE HEALTHCARE BILL! Because they love it so much!

Seriously, this has nothing to do with a promise to obstruct any vote, even if they support everything about it. It just looks that way. A lot. And there's really no other way to look at it, but that totally not what's going on.