Senate passes bill to keep tax cuts for the middle class

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/mcconnell-pulls-back-from-filibuster-on-senate-tax-cut-vote/2012/07/25/gJQAxGpL9W_story.html

The Senate on Wednesday narrowly approved a plan to preserve tax cuts for the middle class while letting them expire for the wealthy, a powerful if largely symbolic victory for Democrats who have been pushing to raise taxes on the rich for more than a decade.

The measure is dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled House, where leaders are preparing to vote next week on their own plan to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for households at every income level through 2013.

But Democratic lawmakers said the Senate’s 51-48 vote is a political breakthrough that strengthens their election-year argument that Republicans are holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage in order to maintain breaks worth $160,000 a year to the average millionaire.