Senator Tom Harkin cast his final votes in Congress yesterday as the upper chamber wrapped up the lame-duck session. He and Senator Chuck Grassley were on opposite sides as Democrats confirmed a batch of presidential nominees on Monday and Tuesday. You can view all the roll calls here; the nominees were approved mostly along party lines. They included several judges and assistant secretaries of various agencies and Dr. Vivek Murthy, confirmed as surgeon general by 51 votes to 43, with only one Republican yes vote. Murthy had been the target of a relentless “smear campaign” by conservative media and the National Rifle Association, because of his comment in October 2012 that “Guns are a health care issue.”

The conservative media attacks against Murthy began in early March. Coverage of his nomination focused on his past acknowledgement that gun violence affects public health, which conservative media spun as evidence Murthy is obsessed with gun regulations. (Murthy has actually said his focus as Surgeon General will not be on gun violence, but rather obesity.)

Because of strange Senate procedural rules, hardline conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz inadvertently made this week’s raft of confirmations possible. His constitutional point of order against the massive federal government funding bill last Friday prompted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to convene the chamber on Saturday. That gave Democrats more time to set up confirmation votes on nominees this Monday and Tuesday. Rebecca Kaplan of CBS News explained here that the most controversial presidential nominees to be confirmed “thanks to Ted Cruz” are Murthy, Tony Blinken for Deputy Secretary of State, and Sarah Saldaña, for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director in the Department of Homeland Security. Harkin voted for and Grassley against all of those nominees.

Iowa’s senators ended up on the same side in one big vote this week: the bill extending dozens of tax breaks for corporations and individuals. Steven Dennis noted in Roll Call,

Handing out mostly corporate tax breaks and adding to the debt to do it has proven to be a popular thing for Congress. Democrats including President Barack Obama spent the better part of 2013 trying to get Republicans to agree to more revenue as part of a budget deal, but are now signing on to deficit expansion for the sake of tax breaks that will expire, again, in two weeks.

Usually, these tax breaks – which range from the R&D tax break to breaks for NASCAR, racehorse owners and wind farms – are touted as incentives – and indeed some senators called them that Tuesday. But it’s hard to retroactively incentivize anything – a point made on the Senate floor by outgoing Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who voted no and said the tax bill didn’t even have the shelf life of a carton of eggs. […] After President Barack Obama threatened to veto an emerging deal after the midterms that would have added close to half a trillion to the debt over a decade, the scaled-back bill was all Congress could muster.

The tax extenders bill passed by 76 votes to 16. Joining Iowa’s senators in the yes column were possible GOP presidential candidates Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. Opponents of this bill included Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Elizabeth Warren. Independent Bernie Sanders, who is exploring a presidential campaign as a Democrat, missed yesterday’s votes because he was in Iowa.

Any relevant comments are welcome in this thread. Grassley’s official statement on the tax extenders bill is after the jump.

Statement released by Grassley’s office on December 16:

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on Senate passage of legislation to extend expired tax provisions.  The provisions include a series of provisions for individuals, such as the college tuition deduction and deduction for teachers who buy classroom supplies out of their own pocket, which Grassley advanced as Finance Committee chairman, and provisions of interest to employers such as equipment expensing provisions for farmers and business owners and a tax credit for the production of electricity from wind energy.  Grassley is the author of the original wind energy tax credit and has advanced it several times.  Grassley voted for the bill, which now heads to the President for his consideration.

“Among the last votes of the Senate’s lame duck session was on tax extenders.  Under the current leadership, the Senate has assigned this piece of business one of the lowest priorities.  The message from the Democratic leadership is that certainty for individuals who look forward to these provisions or people who create and maintain jobs is a low priority.  This is a bad message in any economy and especially in one that could be much better.  House and Senate negotiators were closing in on an agreement that would have provided a two-year extension for most provisions and would have been good for wind energy production, with a multi-year extension.  But the President threatened a veto before the ink on the agreement was even written, much less dry.  The President was set to get a lot of what he wanted in that deal, but he wanted more.  Now we’re left with a weak tax package.  I hope for better next year, when the Senate is under new leadership.”