Some Republicans are discussing a fall back strategy they call the "doomsday plan" to allow Democrats a vote on the middle class tax cuts, while punting on all other issues until after the new year reports Jonathan Karl of ABC News in Republican Doomsday Plan: Cave on Taxes, Vote ‘Present:’
Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely. It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.
Two senior Republican elected officials tell me this doomsday plan is becoming the most likely scenario. A top GOP House leadership aide confirms the plan is under consideration, but says Speaker Boehner has made no decision on whether to pursue it.
Under one variation of this Doomsday Plan, House Republicans would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote “present” on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.
By doing this, Republicans avoid taking blame for tax increases on 98 percent of income tax payers. As one senior Republican in Congress told me, “You don’t take a hostage you aren’t willing to shoot.” Republicans aren’t willing to kill the middle class tax cuts, even if extending them alone will make it harder to later extend tax cuts on the wealthy.
Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) has already supported the idea of approving the middle class tax cuts on Sunday.
Huffington Post reports:
"That's a victory, not a loss," Cole said on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. ”"And then we're still free to try and fight over higher rates, offering revenue, which the Speaker has put on the table."
Other representatives, including Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.), Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), have indicated that they would support Cole's proposition.
Up until now, I had been assuming that if Speaker John Boehner freed House members to vote their conscience, we would only need to pick up 26 Republican cross-overs allowing the rest of the Republicans to abstain, or vote "present." The major surprising new idea in this article, if I understand it correctly, is that if all Republicans merely vote "present," we could win on a minority of Democratic votes.
An alternative interpretation might be that this is just posturing by Republicans intended to scare Democrats into making excessive concessions, because this approach would leave unemployment benefits stranded.
Or, Speaker Boehner may be considering this as a face saving measure if he fears House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may be able to get 26 Republicans to support a "discharge petition," rather than have to face voters to explain why they shot down the middle class tax cut.
And, letting sequestration trigger may not be such a bad thing. Howard Dean has already asserted it is the best deal progressive Democrats will get on deficit reductions because it includes reductions to military spending Republicans only agreed to by accident never believing we would get to this point. Dean say we will never get them to agree to reduce military spending voluntarily - something many of the folks at RedState seem to agree with when I was spying on them Friday night.
Let's focus on seeing how many Republican House members might be willing to join us in supporting a vote before the holiday's on the middle class tax cut and raise the pressure, as I agree with the President and Minority Leader Pelosi that putting the tax cut issues behind us will make the rest of the negotiations far easier.