Ed Markey is mad. Actually, a little more than that. He is furious that the Republicans have all but banned Democrats in the consideration of the new tax bill championed by the administration, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. There was a noticeable lack of realism from the junior senator from Massachusetts when confronted with the fact that the Health Care bill from the Obama Administration eight years ago was the exact political reverse. NoViewNews.com literally caught up with Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) as he was walking from his office to an appointment in the bowels of the Russell Senate Office Building. We shared an elevator.
In a talk and walk interview Markey bemoaned the tone on Capitol Hill. “It’s regrettable, it doesn’t serve our democracy well.” This jibes with previous interviews on NoViewNews.com with former House leaders. It is the way it is now. The party in power in either, or both, chambers will rather deliberate amongst themselves rather than bring in the other party. Given this, there is still divisiveness amongst Republicans. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Mike Lee (R-UT), would like to see a larger tax credit for those with children. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stresses that Republicans who disagree need to see the bigger picture rather than focus on particulars. “In general, this is a good tax bill for all.” It will shrink the tax brackets from seven to four, and, as Speaker Ryan suggests, be a true middle class tax cut. Yet the argument over “tax cuts for the rich” remains.
Senator Markey has been on the Hill for a long time. First elected in 1976, in the wake of the post-Watergate class of 1974, also known as the “Kennedy Class,” referred due to the great amount of youthful newly elected congressman inspired by President Kennedy in their teens, Markey served thirty-seven years in the house. He was the eleventh in seniority. Even as the dean of the Massachusetts delegation he is junior in seniority to fellow Bay State Senator Elizabeth Warren. He could have gained the senate seat before. In 2004, if John Kerry was elected President, and in 2009, after the passing of Edward Kennedy. When John Kerry was named Secretary of State in 2013, he walked into that seat in a special election, and won it outright the next year. He has accomplishments under his belt. Just a couple of instances are the one-hundred percent of air cargo being screened bill. Pressure from Markey on British Petroleum led to placing a live feed camera on the ruptured Deepwater Horizon pipeline leaking oil in the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010. It can be argued that no one is more adamantly a global warming believer, and science proponent in the senate. Markey chaired a science subcommittee in the house when the Republicans took over. Not only was he de-chaired, but the committee was dissolved as well.
Walking beside him you can tell the now 71 year old senator is upset. He is ticked that he, and other Democrats, are excluded from tax bill proceedings. He feels snubbed, left out. This is the new reality on the Hill today. It can be traced back to the Republican Revolution of 1994 when Republicans in the house, after decades as the minority party, came out swinging against Democrat imperialism, and entitlement, and changed the rules of the game. The pendulum has gone the other way into the extreme. Forget compromise, and bi-partisanship, it is literally all, or nothing at all. Markey is resigned. “It is nothing like the Tax Bill of 1986, when we came together, and worked out a compromise creating a great bill.” What is unsaid is pressure from the Reagan Administration, and constituents influenced by that administration’s push for those in agreement to pressure their Democrat representatives to cooperate, is what led to those compromises. In interviewing those in, and out, of power NoViewNews.com has found that everybody longs for the time, and is in awe of, that particular bill. In a previous article in “Currents” Jim Moran (D-VA) shares the same longing.
So the Republicans will get their way in this one. Factions within the party will get this, or that, but there will be no Democrat input until it is accomplished. The new way, and it does not serve our democracy, or body politic well.
Senator Edward Markey is the junior senator from Massachusetts, and serves on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and is ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources.
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