Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with Sen. Chuck Schumer in background (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Wednesday afternoon was a big one in threats and counter threats over the last bit of critical business Congress has to conduct—extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut extension. First, House House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan
blew off the need for the extensions, particularly the tax cut.
"It's a holiday," Ryan said Wednesday of the payroll tax cut. "Holidays come, holidays go. It was never intended to be permanent tax policy."
Once again confirming that only tax cuts for the rich are the only ones Republicans will fight to make permanent. This would be good news for the long-term political viability of Social Security, if Ryan's new attitude could be believed. At any rate, Ryan nonetheless acknowledged that leadership does want the extension, and "said that the question for House lawmakers now is not whether to extend the cut but rather how to pay for the cost of an extension." (And, yes, only tax cuts for the middle class have to be paid for.)
Democrats seem to recognize that Republicans are tied up in knots over this, leadership not wanting to be put in the position of being responsible for allowing this extension to fail because they had to protect the rich while the tea party and other rank and file, in their typical nihilistic way, don't give a damn. Sen. Chuck Schumer had to rub GOP leadership's nose in it a little.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday that the political terrain has shifted so much over the last several months that the GOP’s playbook isn’t working and it has them badly wrongfooted. [...]
"We've had four Republicans now talk about taxes on incomes of over a million dollars. If you don't keep at it you're not going to change their view and the purpose is that the public comes to our side on this issue and they feel it."
Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent the message that they'll wait the House out, and won't be jammed, vowing to stay in session as long as necessary.
And, finally, President Obama warned the House that he'll veto any extension bill that includes a poison pill rider they've floated:
"Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject," President Barack Obama said [...] "If the payroll tax cut is attached to a whole bunch of extraneous issues, then it's not something that I'm going to accept."