Coburn prompts Senate vote on ethanol subsidies

By Lori Montgomery,
WashPost
Published: June 10

The anti-tax pledge signed by 95 percent of congressional Republicans faces a key test Tuesday, when the Senate is scheduled to vote on a plan to repeal billions of dollars in annual tax credits for ethanol blenders — a move the pledge defines as a tax increase.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) surprised Senate leaders when he filed a motion late Thursday to force a preliminary vote on the measure.

The ethanol credit is widely condemned by Republicans as bad economic policy, and Coburn derides it as spending through the tax code. But a vote to kill it would represent a significant break with more than two decades of GOP tax orthodoxy, which prohibits increasing revenue by any means other than economic growth.

Coburn has argued that Republicans must abandon that orthodoxy to forge a compromise with Democrats on a viable plan to rein in the spiraling national debt.

(More here.)