Was this any surprise? The Republican House of Representatives voted or technically hid
their vote to not extend the Bush tax cuts beyond December 31st, 2011. The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner and his cohort Majority
Leader Eric Cantor did not even have the courage of their convictions to send
the Bill to the floor for a vote because they knew it would have passed. So they
sent it to a committee of five where 3 of the 5 committee members said they
would never vote for a compromise to extend the tax cut beyond the end of the
year. Game over.
The President and Senate were blind sided by the
behavior of the speaker and the Republican controlled house because over the
weekend everyone thought that they had a deal to extend the tax cuts for several
months allowing the beleaguered middle class to continue to take home more money
in their paychecks. The Republicans in the Senate were so happy with the
bi-partisan compromise that Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader in
the Senate was seen with a rare broad smile across his face high fiving a
colleague on the way out the door. After that vote, satisfied with their job
well done, they all left for their Christmas break.
So what happened? We may never know what happened behind closed doors. It was thought that Boehner was taken out to the wood shed by the Tea Party caucus members and told that
there would be no deal. It did not take an expert to read Boehner's body language when he emerged from the meeting to tell anyone who would listen that yet again he could not deliver a deal to keep his word on a compromise that he alluded to being able to pass just days before. He looked like a leader close to tears. As he was using terms like "kicking the can down the road," Boehner's demeanor told another story: one that said that he would rather be anywhere else
than behind that lectern. He tried to explain that the American people want
a longer term solution to the tax cut by no one was buy that, not even people in
his own party. It was apparent that even John Boehner had no idea about what the
American people want or how to apease the extremists in his own party.
But two promises were broken in this fiasco. The first was that fact that the House Republicans led by Boehner (and more realistically by the Tea Party) left their colleagues, the Senate Republicans twisting in the wind. So much so that several prominent Republican senators
openly criticized their own colleagues in the House. Now that is something we have not seen in recent memory. Republican Senators such as Scott Brown from Massachusetts are on the hot seat in the 2012 elections are furious with Boehner and the Tea Party for this latest vote to derail America.
This latest mess may or may not be cleaned up by the time the workers in America have to pay
an additional $40.00 per paycheck in taxes. But the more important "promise" broken is the one that nearly all Republicans made to lobbyist Grover Norquist. The now very famous promise made by nearly every right wing representative and candidate and nearly every right wing Presidential candidate was to never, ever raise taxes under any circumstance for any reason. Funny thing is that Norquist has been very quiet. He did issue a statement saying that this latest failure to act by the Republican House of Representatives and effectively raising the tax on the middle class was not a breaking of the vow by Republicans to never raise taxes. But the damage has been done. No one believes him. He is being exposed for what he and his lobbying firm really are: a shill for the wealthiest who do not want to pay their fair share. Give him credit though. He had many fooled fora long time.
Will this latest act or more accurately this inability to act expose the Tea Party, John Boehner and Eric Cantor, Grover Norquist for what they have become and who they really are? Too early to tell. Most reasonably minded people understand that for now the middle class needs to be left alone to fight their way out of this economic downturn that refuses to ebb. It is only the Tea Party who believes that taxes need to be increased on the working and working poor. But as we enter 2012 and the upcoming Presidential election, the Republicans have shown their hand and for a while it was a pretty convincing bluff.
their vote to not extend the Bush tax cuts beyond December 31st, 2011. The
Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner and his cohort Majority
Leader Eric Cantor did not even have the courage of their convictions to send
the Bill to the floor for a vote because they knew it would have passed. So they
sent it to a committee of five where 3 of the 5 committee members said they
would never vote for a compromise to extend the tax cut beyond the end of the
year. Game over.
The President and Senate were blind sided by the
behavior of the speaker and the Republican controlled house because over the
weekend everyone thought that they had a deal to extend the tax cuts for several
months allowing the beleaguered middle class to continue to take home more money
in their paychecks. The Republicans in the Senate were so happy with the
bi-partisan compromise that Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader in
the Senate was seen with a rare broad smile across his face high fiving a
colleague on the way out the door. After that vote, satisfied with their job
well done, they all left for their Christmas break.
So what happened? We may never know what happened behind closed doors. It was thought that Boehner was taken out to the wood shed by the Tea Party caucus members and told that
there would be no deal. It did not take an expert to read Boehner's body language when he emerged from the meeting to tell anyone who would listen that yet again he could not deliver a deal to keep his word on a compromise that he alluded to being able to pass just days before. He looked like a leader close to tears. As he was using terms like "kicking the can down the road," Boehner's demeanor told another story: one that said that he would rather be anywhere else
than behind that lectern. He tried to explain that the American people want
a longer term solution to the tax cut by no one was buy that, not even people in
his own party. It was apparent that even John Boehner had no idea about what the
American people want or how to apease the extremists in his own party.
But two promises were broken in this fiasco. The first was that fact that the House Republicans led by Boehner (and more realistically by the Tea Party) left their colleagues, the Senate Republicans twisting in the wind. So much so that several prominent Republican senators
openly criticized their own colleagues in the House. Now that is something we have not seen in recent memory. Republican Senators such as Scott Brown from Massachusetts are on the hot seat in the 2012 elections are furious with Boehner and the Tea Party for this latest vote to derail America.
This latest mess may or may not be cleaned up by the time the workers in America have to pay
an additional $40.00 per paycheck in taxes. But the more important "promise" broken is the one that nearly all Republicans made to lobbyist Grover Norquist. The now very famous promise made by nearly every right wing representative and candidate and nearly every right wing Presidential candidate was to never, ever raise taxes under any circumstance for any reason. Funny thing is that Norquist has been very quiet. He did issue a statement saying that this latest failure to act by the Republican House of Representatives and effectively raising the tax on the middle class was not a breaking of the vow by Republicans to never raise taxes. But the damage has been done. No one believes him. He is being exposed for what he and his lobbying firm really are: a shill for the wealthiest who do not want to pay their fair share. Give him credit though. He had many fooled fora long time.
Will this latest act or more accurately this inability to act expose the Tea Party, John Boehner and Eric Cantor, Grover Norquist for what they have become and who they really are? Too early to tell. Most reasonably minded people understand that for now the middle class needs to be left alone to fight their way out of this economic downturn that refuses to ebb. It is only the Tea Party who believes that taxes need to be increased on the working and working poor. But as we enter 2012 and the upcoming Presidential election, the Republicans have shown their hand and for a while it was a pretty convincing bluff.
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