House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
at odds with rank and file Republicans. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Conventional wisdom says that Republicans are
preparing to say "yes" to extensions of both the payroll tax cut extension and unemployment benefits, but while leadership might be, it's not clear Republican members are.
[A]n amazing thing is about to happen at the close of one of the most politically contentious years in recent history: Republican leadership is about to say yes to Democrats. Yes to unemployment benefits, yes to Obama’s payroll tax holiday and yes on passing an unwieldy pile of year-end spending bills.
It’s surprising on several levels. Republicans have voiced measured opposition to the payroll tax holiday. Many conservatives don’t believe long-term unemployment benefits encourage people to go back to work and nearly all of them think the current system is broken. Republicans also came into office vowing not to fund the government using massive omnibus bills.
Yet, if House GOP leadership has its way, all these measures will land on the president’s desk before year’s end. [...]
GOP leadership thinks its party wins by extending the payroll tax break, which Obama wanted as part of the 2010 deal to add another year to Bush tax cuts. Plus, Republicans are afraid of getting hammered if they let a tax break for middle-class Americans lapse. And they simply haven’t had the time—or political will—to overhaul the unemployment benefit apparatus. Plus, Republicans will exact more spending cuts as part of the deal. [...]
Republicans could get a major victory as part of this fight. The House GOP is looking for systemic reforms to unemployment insurance as part of any extension. One option would shorten the length of the benefits from 99 weeks.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner argued to their House colleagues that the GOP cannot be in a position of allowing tax increases. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was convinced that Senate Republicans were going to support the tax cut extension.
But it's not entirely clear whether the rank and file agree with that, or with Grover Norquist that allowing the payroll tax holiday to expire doesn't count as a tax increase. Witness the majority of Senate Republicans voting against even the Republican extension plan yesterday.
Republican leadership seems pretty reluctant to have another major showdown, but might be misreading the sentiment of the bulk of their caucus. That dissension gives the Democrats the upper hand, as long as they remain determined to use it. It should mean that they don't have to give in on Republican demands for damaging spending cuts or program restructuring in trade for these extensions. The political positioning of a millionaire's surtax to help the middle class is a winner for Democrats, one they shouldn't give up lightly.