Posted on 12/22/2011 9:01:48 AM PST by Qbert
The standoff over preserving a tax break continued as House Speaker John Boehner showed little sign of reversing course despite sustained criticism from his own party and President Obama.
Boehner assembled his top negotiators for a second day at an otherwise empty Capitol, but their position is being overpowered by the risk of a looming tax hike on Jan. 1. Obama planned to showcase stories of workers who will lose $40 a paycheck later Thursday at the White House.
“We’re fighting to do the right thing,” said Boehner, who wants to launch formal negotiations with Democrats to resolve differing approaches to the issue. “It’s time for us to sit down and have serious negotiations.”
To broker a compromise, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, floated a way out: Have the House accept the Senate’s stopgap payroll tax cut compromise while formal talks get underway.
[Snip]
The toll the political battle was taking on the GOP leaders was apparent...
[Snip]
“We could probably resolve the differences in an hour,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the majority leader, who was among those fighting hardest for the House approach. He suggested the president, who ducked out of the White House for a quick Christmas shopping trip this week while his family is in Hawaii for the holidays, could bring the First Dog to the Capitol for talks. “We’re here and we want to solve the problem.”
The impasse is rooted in the budget issues that have been the signature issue of the House GOP majority. House Republicans want the tax cut paid for with spending cuts that Democrats, who had proposed taxing millionaires to cover the costs, reject.
(Emphasis added)
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
the sad thing is McConnell won’t be helping his party out- he’ll be helping his nation out yet fails to understand this...
What exactly is the House leverage? The Senate is GONE already.
Silence from Mitch (the fag) McConnell.
“What exactly is the House leverage?”
It’s hard to get any leverage when the one person in the Senate who could put pressure on the Dems simply refuses to do so (harming his entire party... essentially to try to save a RINO from Massachusetts).
I think I disagree. McConnell would never have put the bill forward had he known the House would not support it. THe incompetent House Leadership has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...
Boehner and Cantor need to stand in front of a mirror and recite “Job #1 is to remove Obama from the Presidency” over and over until it finally soaks into their thick skulls.
Yes we all know a 2 month extension is stupidly silly and impractical, but giving Obama the upper hand and allowing him to look like the Great Tax Cutter is even stupider. These guys are even more incompetent than he is.
Politics is not about taking the most extreme position and whining that the other side won’t come over to it. They should have taken this deal off the table, declared victory on behalf of all Republican candidates, and then gone right back in and started fighting for the one year deal and win that one too.
Instead they booted it because they don’t have control over their members who just decided this issue was as good as any to throw a fit over. Cantor is doing whatever he’s doing but it’s not in the interests of the Republicans who need to win their seats back - - Nancy Pelosi is no doubt polishing her gavel in anticipation of these boobs losing the House again.
It can't become law without them, and they're still in Session.
Unfortunately, they're also losing the propaganda war, not helped out at all by squishes in the Senate who want to surrender to Reid and Obama.
Standard operating procedure for the Stupid Party; snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And, I've received no response so far from Boehner’s office on this...maybe they're out drinking (joking).
In my opinion, as they are losing the propaganda war, not that they could win it anyway, they might as well go all in. The rats will accuse them of something anyway. If they cave, the Republicans piss off a substantial part of the base, which is what gets them elected anyway.
Don’t pass it. Make the senate and 0 sweat for this. If republicans in the senate are too focused on compromise, let them look like the true morons that they are.
I’m tending to lean to your side of the argument. I’m all for tax cuts, and if these were on income that’s one thing, but cutting a tax that goes to a fund that must be paid out later isn’t fiscally responsible. Even balancing it with spending cuts really doesn’t make sense because none of those will help the SS fund. Vote for the two months and end the bleeding.
We got movement on the pipeline. I guess I’d leverage to try and get as much spending cuts as possible, but I don’t see going to the mat for a long term extension of the payroll tax cut. We won’t gain much other than some political capital, but sometimes you got to do that to set them up the bomb.
I’ll have to disagree on your first point- there was an “agreement”, but then House members realized a 2-month extension wouldn’t be workable for logistics reasons, and they didn’t want to be demagogued again for the next two months (and two months after that, and...). McConnell, the robot, had his little deal, and that’s all he cared about- consequences be darned.
I agree with most of the rest of your points. The leadership is rudderless because they are trying to react to Obama and the Dems’ endless harangues, instead of controlling the dialogue through a confident stance, as Reagan showed.
BROKE HIS SILENCE? Where ARE the Republican leaders on this gridlock issue?
They should gather for a photo op on the House or Senate stairs with a nude woman so the media covers them. They should tell the American people what's really going on here.
Even Rush's limp replacement today doesn't get it. Rush did a masterful job all week pounding away while telling Americans about what this "payroll tax break" REALLY is. Rush's substitute is so caught up in the distracting gamesmanship going on in DC that he doesn't even know or care about what the "simple" issue really is about....a raid on Social Security and another huge cost to the taxpayers.
I'm beyond frustrated.
STUPID PARTY....LAZY CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS......AND UNPREPARED, UN-PERCEPTIVE TALK SHOW HOSTS!!!
Leni
I haven't been watching this. Whose idea is the two month extension, or who is pushing it? If the left is winning the PR war, seems like they'd love to have this come up again every couple months.
Do they even realize how many people file their taxes “QUARTERLY”? Those are increments of THREE months for those of you in Rio Linda. Companies will have to do two sets of quarterly reports Q1.
Do they even realize how many people file their taxes “QUARTERLY”? Those are increments of THREE months for those of you in Rio Linda. Companies will have to do two sets of quarterly reports Q1.
"STUPID PARTY....LAZY CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS......AND UNPREPARED, UN-PERCEPTIVE TALK SHOW HOSTS!!!"
A lot of truth, there.
I will give great credit though to Mark Levin's substitute, Brian Sussman- he did a tremendous job earlier this week hammering away about the social security $7.9 Trillion shortfall. Too bad the losers in office can't ever mention this.
This is no tax cut. This is robbery of the SS ponzi (what is left of it). I hate it when the great ponzi get robbed.
So... How do you really feel? ;-D You summarize the rest of our feelings quite well!
A few years ago I told my son that this administration - and the current situation in Washington - will have to lead to secession by some states. We are seeing more and more that there is NO Republican Party! What we have is a GOP that has been infiltrated by a number of Democraps, thus allowing a bi-partisan overthrow of our Constitutional Republic.
Presumably there are a few patriots in Washington... it will take discerning eyes to discover them. There certainly appears that there is practically no one in Washington prepared to save us from financial ruin!
We hear talk of how we still have 15+ years before we face a financial crunch. That is a bald-faced lie! When interest rates climb back to market-controlled levels, the interest payment on the debt is going to gobble up a huge portion of the collected taxes. Waiting in the wings is a huge multi-trillion dollar obligation called Medicare and Social Security - some say as much as $100 trillion.
Cities and states [predominantly Democrap-governed] are facing bankruptcy, and the Washington oligarchy is going to try to force more responsible cities and states to bail out their profligate neighbors. This is the point when some states will have no choice in order to survive but to secede from the Union.
Can you imagine the power of a union of states including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia... and perhaps Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Virginia and Alaska? ?Arizona & New Mexico? Such a union would almost immediately be hugely more prosperous than the remaining United States of Americanos!
Frankly, I cannot perceive a scenario that can come from the present socio-political situation that will save the United States from ruin. Major changes are needed... and I question if the American people have the stomach for the changes needed.
So, YES, I am quite frustrated... and I guess very pessimistic. Will anyone emerge on the political scene that will tell the folks the sour truth? I cannot see them at present.
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