Just a heads up for readers following this closely. The House is expected to pass the Obama tax cut plan later this afternoon, but a short time ago a rules vote that is a predicate to the vote on the bill turned into a test vote of support for the tax cut bill. Democrats quickly pulled the rule off the floor apparently because it lacked enough votes to pass.
To be clear, this doesn’t necessarily mean the tax cut plan lacks the votes. It appears — and we’re still tracking this down — that this was a protest vote by Democrats disgruntled that the leadership isn’t giving them more time to vote on amendments to the tax cut bill.
If that’s true, you would expect this to be resolved fairly quickly and the vote to continue has planned later in the afternoon. But this was an unexpected hiccup. More soon.
