Senate Posturing On Bush Tax Cuts
COSTELLO: Ok. I told you before new information on the Bush era tax cuts. There is some movement on Capitol Hill so let's head there now and check in with our senior congressional correspondent Dana Bash. What's up, Dana?</s>DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, earlier in the hour we talked about some votes that are going to happen in the Senate today. I reported that we expected that they would need a 60-vote threshold to pass and therefore they wouldn't. Guess what? Since then things have changed and the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell just went to the Senate floor and said Republicans have changed their strategy. What they're going to do now is allow a vote, actually a couple of votes on extending the Bush era tax cuts but with just simple majorities. The fact that this is news is maybe sad, maybe interesting, unclear. Because usually things need 60 votes. But the Republican leader said that they're not going to put up procedural hurdles. What they are going to do is allow a vote to extend the Bush era tax cuts for families making $250,000 and less. That's the President's plan. That's the Democrats' plan. And just need actually 50 votes to pass. Democrats actually think that they might have that. I just talked to a Democratic aide who said that they believe that that could pass. The second vote that they're going to have is the Republican plan which is to extend all Bush era tax cuts for those making up to millions of dollars and those making $250,000 and less but do that for just one year. Unclear if that Republican plan will pass. So this is going to be some movement and it'll be real -- senators will really be on the record. That is the goal the Republican leader said today to get senators on the record, remove all the procedural hurdles. I think an obvious question you'll probably going to ask me is does that mean that this is going to become law? The answer to that question is, no. This is -- these are still political votes. There are procedural reasons which I won't get into right now why that won't ultimately become law at least in the short term. But at least we will see real votes on the Senate floor on this major discussion that's been going on in the campaign trails.</s>COSTELLO: Dana Bash, many thanks. Dramatic pictures. A woman trapped in raging flood. How she got out of this alive.