Question about the passing of the tax cut bill today....

A couple weeks ago, the slimmed down version of the extension to the tax cut bill failed in the senate with 53 votes in the majority.(the bill most of us wanted) We were informed it needed 60 votes, although it had every thing to do with revenues and appropriations as required by senate rules. I posted here asking 'why'? Some of those who answered said correctly, that those reconciliation rules can only be used once during the year, and it had been the device to pass the health insurance law earlier this year. So, today, I turned on 'c-span', and the vote was happening on this current version favored by the rich and corporation ass-kissers. There was a note hilighted, saying the bill only needed a majority! In the same year! Anybody have an explanation?

Once that's done you only need a majority.

bills need a majority. 50+1. but in order to stop debate on a bill, you can require 2/3rds, if someone filibusters.

and reconciliation has all sorts of absurd rules (like the rest of the Senate)

Though it's 60 votes, not 2/3. You need 2/3 to override a veto, or to convict an impeached president, or to pass a constitutional amendment.

it. They did threaten to filibuster if a bill would pass not including tax cuts for the top 2% {their "base"}.

That's why this one only needs a simple majority. To his credit, President Obama knew this was the only way, in the 11th hour, to ensure no tax cuts expire for the lower 98%, the Child Tax Credit and EIC continues, and unemployment benefits won't dry up by the end of December.

Like neo-con Krauthammer wrote in his piece, http://www.kansascity.com/2010/12/13/2517957/swindle-of-the-year-goes-to-obama.html#ixzz183etiX6Y">Obama should get the prize for the biggest swindle of the year, by winning a second Stimulus package FAR greater than the $814 billion dollar Stimulus I.

...that the normal order of Senate business is majority, not 60.

there are a lot of people making under 20,000 that this will effect. And since that was his initiative Obama has now raised taxes on the working poor.

before passing it back to the Senate.

I think that sums it up pretty well.

This was always the destiny of this policy. Once the frame of most upper income earners being the same as the vast majority was accepted, it was all over. We were never going to fight for targeted relief for the hardest hit nor move the yoke from the broadest number of struggling citizens by those with the resources took a share of the burden more commiserate with their ability to contribute and the amount of benefit received from the system in place.

Imagine if this money was targeted to the bottom 40-60%, I know people wish to create such an impression by using the rhetoric of "the middle class tax cut" but the money in the Bush tax scam has gone and will continue to go to top earners, who top 2% or top 20% are not the ones who really need the boost.

The number of votes needed to pass a bill in the Senate is a simple majority, 51 (there are exceptions in the Constitution for things like treaties which require a super-majority).

The number of votes needed to cut off debate (end a filibuster) is 60.

The "reconciliation rule" that was used to pass the health care bill was for a bill that (in theory) had already passed through the Senate. "Reconciliation" refers to reconciling the bill with the House version. While it may not have been the exact same language as the bill that had passed the Senate earlier, which is what Republicans were complaining about, in theory it was the same bill...so it was able to be passed under the rules of reconciliation.

The reason the bill you were watching today only needed a majority, is because they had already had a vote to cut off debate.

Somebody please correct me if I am wrong.