After a solid week of Democrats making Sheldon Whitehouse’s Buffett Rule bill the biggest legislative priority in the country, the Senate today will take up the proposal. Seems as if the efforts may pay off as a new Gallup Poll shows that 60 percent of Americans support it.
Today’s vote is a motion to proceed and needs to pass with a 60 vote super majority in order to move to a vote on the bill itself. In other words, Democrats will have to convince at least seven Republicans to vote to allow the bill to come up for a floor vote. That is expected to happen sometime around 5 and 7 p.m. The Senate is scheduled to take up the matter at 2 p.m. Here’s the video from Whitehouse’s floor speech today:
In the meantime, we’ve included a Twitter widget below so you can follow along with what Washington DC and beyond are saying about the Buffett Rule and here are some useful links for catching up to speed:
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s op/ed in RI Future on the Buffett Bill. Here’s another op/ed he wrote for the Projo a few days later.
Whitehouse tell me that Wall Street lobbyists will be biggest hurdle to passage. Congressman Cicilline also supports the Buffett Rule. Whitehouse talks about the Buffett Rule with the Center for American Progress.
The Times has a great overview page on the Buffett Rule, with an archive of their coverage. And here’s a link to the President’s weekly address in which he again advocates for it.