Update - My bad - as Benintn points out in the comments - I left out the link
Here it is
And that says a lot
So AP headline article is
Senate Republicans say they'll block tax increase
with the sub headline of
Obama's plan to raise taxes on wealthiest Americans faces barricade by Senate Republicans
follow me over
But that isn't what is happening. There is nothing that the Republicans can do to block the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. NOTHING, zero, zip, nada. The reason is that THEY, the Republicans wrote those expirations into the bills when they passed the original budget busting tax cuts.
The reason they did was that the CBO scored the bill on a 10 year projection. Soooooo to make it look like it had less of an impact on the deficit than it really did, the republicans had the tax cuts expire near the end of the 10 year period.
It was dishonest at the time, but what else do you expect of the Republicans.
If we know that the Republicans can't possibly block a tax increase, what are they doing? They are blocking a tax cut. In the article, they admit it.
McConnell has said a bill extending the tax cuts for only low- and middle-income earners cannot pass the Senate, but he declined to reiterate that threat on Monday. Republicans control 41 seats, the minimum needed for a successful bill-killing filibuster, though McConnell spokesman Don Stewart declined to say whether all 41 Republicans would support a filibuster.
So, there you go.