For her tenure in Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn claimed enactment of a sales tax deduction for Tennesseans on their federal income tax returns as her crowning political achievement.
Yet yesterday, she was reduced to voting against the bailout legislation of Wall Street fatcats that included re-authorization of the sales tax credit for Tennesseans.
On local TV, she didn't bring up the benefit for Tennessee taxpayers. She was forced to vote "no" against the bailout because constituents flooded her office with demands she do so. And the local news media including The Tennessean didn't even pick up on the sales tax deduction being in the $850 billion bailout legislation.
From her comments on various TV political and morning shows during the week, she was setting the stage for voting "aye" yesterday -- after voting "no" on Monday. She told talking TV heads that an acceptable compromise could be reached by the end of the week. And she had secretly got her coveted sales tax deduction into the Christmas tree of outrageous freebies added to the legislation atop the national debt.
Blackburn was prepared to change her vote, but The Tennessean on Friday morning published comments that she had not yet announced her intentions on how she'd vote on the bailout. Her constituents were outraged. And Blackburn was forced to vote "no" and lose any credit for re-authorizing her coveted sales tax deduction.
Such are the perils of politicians with principles built upon shifting sands. On Friday in the House, Blackburn was one of the biggest political losers.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment