President Obama's Weekly Address - February 11, 2012

Extending the Payroll Tax Cut for the Middle Class

Dumbass Quote of the Day

“I’ve talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who believe that, ‘Hey, we don’t like this two month extension [but] if you can get this fixed, why not do the right thing for the American people, even though it’s not exactly what we want.”

~John Boehner, Speaker of the House, explaining why House Republicans decided to cave on the temporary extension of the payroll tax cut after painting themselves into a corner.

As one of my readers posited regarding the bold text above, "Let's mull that over for a minute."

"...Why not do the RIGHT THING for the American people, even though it's NOT EXACTLY WHAT WE WANT?" For someone who's fond of using the phrase, "We're here to do the people's work," he sure has a tendency to disregard what the people actually want.

Just Say "Oops" and Get Out (The House GOP Payroll Tax Cut Fiasco Edition)

What the hell happened? How is it that the Republican "We'll-Slit-Our-Wrists-Before-We-Raise-Taxes-All-Hail-Grover-Norquist" Party found themselves on the wrong side of a tax cut issue?

House Republicans have privately offered up the terms of their surrender on the payroll tax cut, pending sign off from their notoriously unwieldy caucus...

...After conceding for weeks, the Dems finally said this far and no further — and actually meant it. You read that right.

And there is the crux of the issue. For the last year, Republicans decided that to defeat President Obama in 2012, they were going to be the Party of No, even on issues with which they agreed. They would grind the gears of government to a halt, economy and the American people be damned, just to regain control of the White House with whatever clown du jour would rise to the top of the GOP primary elections.

And for a while it worked. The President, whether you agreed with him or not, would make compromises with the intransigent Republicans because unlike them, he wasn't prepared to throw his fellow Americans under the bus. Some called it "pragmatism," some called it "caving." Either way, President Obama never stopped trying to make it work. He never walked away from the table, unlike others.

But there's a problem when you go all-in on every hand. Eventually, your bluff is going to be called. You can't have the winning hand every single time. And the pot the House Republicans eventually lost is any possible credibility with the voting public. What they could possibly have been thinking in their push to kill the payroll tax cut is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's Obama Derangement Syndrome kicking in at such a high level, they believed their own bullshit that anything the President says or does must be a bad thing, therefore it must be opposed. Even if it means rejecting issues and policies that the GOP has historically been in favor of.

So today they thought better of it and they've finally decided to fold a hand, but wagered too much in the process. Time will tell how much this will harm their chances in 2012, but judging by Congressional Republican approval ratings, my guess is that they're in for a rude awakening come November.

A Small Price To Pay

So once again, Weeper of the House John Boehner shows his toothless bite when it comes to bringing his side of the aisle in line for a vote not to raise taxes. Yes, you read that correctly, NOT TO RAISE TAXES.

The Senate came together to pass a two month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance by a bipartisan vote of 89-10, and while that may not be an ideal situation, it staves off an automatic increase on taxes for 160 million Americans when the current payroll tax cut expires, hardly something to sneeze at in the current economic state of affairs. But that wasn't good enough for Tea Party Republicans who rejected the bill.

“When we met last week, Speaker Boehner requested that Senator McConnell and I work out a compromise,” [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid said, referring to the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “Neither side got everything they wanted, but we forged a middle ground that passed the Senate by an overwhelming bipartisan majority.”

Well, that was last week, Senator Reid. This week Boehner's got new marching orders from the extreme right.

This may be easy for me to say, but if having taxes raised (yes, Republicans are sitting idly by and breaking the Norquist code of raising taxes at any cost) is what needs to happen to make the general public aware of how intransigent the current Republican Party has become, and the result is a mass termination of House GOP jobs via the 2012 election, then it's a small price to pay for progress.

The House is currently in session to have another vote by 6:30pm which Boehner expects to fail. The system isn't broken. The Republican Party is broken.

President Obama's Weekly Address - December 10, 2011

Ensuring a Fair Shot for the Middle Class

President Obama's Weekly Address - December 3, 2011

Extending and Expanding the Payroll Tax Cut

President Obama's Weekly Address - August 20, 2011

Putting Country Ahead of Party

President Obama's Weekly Address - August 13, 2011

Putting the American People First