Steve Benen is most likely correct when he notes the GOP “negotiators” in the Senate side of the payroll tax cut fight starting next month have no intention of extending the cut at all. Senators Crapo, Barrasso and especially Jon Kyl being involved means the Republicans are signaling that they are okay with destroying any deal in an election year.
[T]he likelihood of there even being an agreement now borders on fanciful. Republican participants won’t be willing to compromise, and most of them don’t fear failure since they oppose tax breaks for the middle class on principle.What about the risk of being blamed? Remember, as far as GOP leaders are concerned, the process itself offers cover. Instead of last week, when House Republicans became the clear villains, when the conference committee struggles to come up with a bipartisan solution, the party will find it easier to spread the blame around.
“It’s not our fault,” GOP leaders will say. “We tried to work with Democrats on a deal, but one didn’t come together. Oh well.”
For Republicans, it’s the best of all possible worlds: middle-class taxes would go up, the economy would take a hit, public disgust for Washington would be renewed, and the media would feel obligated to say “both sides” failed to reach an agreement.
Now Benen’s scenario depends entirely on the “Earth is flat, view differ” Village “journalism” that is so pervasive in the press, and with the election season officially beginning on Tuesday in Iowa, we’re already seeing the GOP also-rans work the refs. The larger problem is that the GOP is basically trumpeting the fact they want to screw over the middle class, and the Village is more than happy to go along with the idea of “shared sacrifice.”
You have to be pretty cynical to think that the GOP will win this fight. Sadly, such a level of cynicism is not only recommended, it’s absolutely necessary.
Davis X. Machina
Let me know when something changes
Corner Stone
So, short hairs? Again?
moonbat
Don’t bet on it in this case. Not many people even knew they were getting a payroll tax cut until the Rethugs made such a big deal about extending it. Now Obama has them in their own rhetorical box since the reason they supposedly didn’t want to extend the tax cut before Xmas was that they wanted to extend it LONGER.
Don’t get me wrong. They may well sabotage the negotiations, but they won’t be able to pin it on “both sides do it.” If they screw over the middle class in favor of millionaires and billionaires, people are going to know who is responsible.
I am sort of enjoying the Republicans’ anti-reality position finally coming back to bite them in the ass.
BGinCHI
GOP + Mainstream Media = Status Quo
This is the formula for protecting incomes and revenue streams. Add the lowest common denominator of Conservadems and you’ve got the reason the whole equation is trending down for everyone from the middle class on down.
FlipYrWhig
They’re going to try to say, as they have many times before, that any attempt to pay for a tax break with a tax on millionaires is the Giantest Tax Increase EVAR, and everyone knows that you can’t raise taxes during a recession. It’s their most tried and true gambit. Of course, in 2008, Obama made a case that people making $250K+ should pay more… and won that argument… but Blue Dogs and other scaredy-cats hampered his efforts to actually implement it. So that’s what I expect to happen: Republicans rant about paying for tax cuts with tax hikes, Democrats rant about rich people refusing to pay their fair share, no deal, finger-pointing, media acts detached and blames both sides, and the fight continues into Election Day, with no one ever being persuaded who wasn’t already the past 19 times we had the same dispute.
Hill Dweller
@FlipYrWhig: But Republicans will be raising taxes on the middle class to protect the rich. There is also the unemployment insurance, which has the potential to be an even more deadly issue for Republican should they expire.
Obama should just keep repeating Republicans have never said a tax cut nor unemployment insurance should be paid for. Why now?
FlipYrWhig
@Hill Dweller: I agree, which is why I see Obama winning the argument among the populace — and he’s done it before. But there are always enough foot-draggers — red-state Democratic senators in particular, who worry about getting reelected after giving their opponents an attack-ad line about tax hikes — that the eminently politically palatable position (higher taxes for the richest, lower for the rest) never actually happens.
Cain
@moonbat:
Meh. As someone said earlier, D.C. is wired for the GOP. The press will still somehow say both sides do it, by talking about something that happened two years ago or something or even bring up Clinton. It’s just a big game. Eventually, though after they fucked the middle class, the press will have to earn less and let go of their 6 figure journalists since they won’t have enough circulation to pay for them. I look forward to that. (Of course said journalists might just end up in a thinktank, but hey whatever..)
OzoneR
The bully pulpit should take care of that, no?
carpeduum
Yawn, the ink is barely dry on the last extension and you clowns gotta start in with your dot connecting already?
Give me a friggin break. I normally like Benen but this just shows me there is not enough real news to report so in order to fill his weekly quota he’s gotta start in with this ridiculous dot connecting nonsense.
Waldo
Hard to say how it will play out. Harry Reid has been to known man up and fight for the 99 percent on occasion. Not reliably or predictably, but it does happen, and it could make difference in this case.
SW
The wild card is the Obama campaign. Yes this would work if he is going to continue to lament the problems with ‘this town’ or ‘Congress’. But if he is prepared to take it to the Republicans, if he is about to come out of his defensive crouch as looks to be increasingly likely, the dim bulbs like Kyle and his ilk may never know what hit them. In fact, their very predicable response as well as the anticipated echo by the village may be just the foil that the White House is counting on the campaign against. You will hear all sorts of squeals coming not just from the Republicans but the press about the lack of decorum and civility coming from the skinny ghetto crack-head in the White House, but my guess is that everyone except the roughly 28% who have always been pseudo Birchers will stand up and cheer.
lacp
@SW: You’ve already started your New Year’s drinking, haven’t you?
SW
Yep. SIngle Malt Scotch. I causes me to dream aloud.
A Conservative Teacher
You do all realize what sort of effect the payroll tax cut is having on your precious Medicare program, right? You can’t play both sides of this issue- you either get a minor extension of this tax or you bankrupt further health care for old people or you cut spending or you raise taxes or you add more to dept- you have to choose one of these options. We live in a world with real consequences, you know.
SW
This tax holiday should expire with the Bush tax cuts. Not before. Not after. And they should all be gone in 2013
piratedan
@A Conservative Teacher: that’s absolutely correct because there’s no possible way that any tax break extended via a payroll mechanism can be offset by any other means than gutting Medicare… because there’s absolutely no way that those revenues could be made up by any other offset in the budget, say like not ordering planes for a year or reducing our standing armies from their current positions….
Here’s a real consequence, go back and play on Redstate where something as idiotic as your last attempt can play to the rubes.
Judas Escargot
@A Conservative Teacher:
That’s your precious Medicare, too, you know…
Fletch
You have to be pretty cynical to think that the GOP will win this fight.
Dems always whine about Repubs failure to fund the welfare state…
Fuck you worthless Democrats that would deprive SS of it’s necessary revenues.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
No, I don’t think it will really play out this way, because the answer is, pass a tax cut extension. All Democrats have to do is propose to pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthy.
xian
@Fletch: the revenues are coming from general funds. ss is in surplus, you know.