On Friday, House Democrats made a good point, or tried to, on the House floor.
That was Rep. James Clyburn
not being recognized by the president pro tempore and
not being allowed to speak on the floor. While the House was supposedly "in session." One of the points Democrats were trying to make was that if the Congress were indeed in session and working, as Republican leaders have insisted in reaction to President Obama's recess appointments, then should they actually be working? First, they exposed Speaker Boehner's big lie that the House is actually working, and second, they pressed the advantage Democrats gained last months in the payroll tax extension fight. All they need to do to press that advantage was to send the reminder to Republicans that it's still out there.
Roll Call reports today on the GOP's reluctance to have this fight [subscription required]:
The fight over an extension of the payroll tax cut was the last major legislative battle of 2011 — and now it’s a fight Republicans in particular are loath to repeat in the opening weeks of 2012. [...]
And the political opportunity afforded to Democrats is not one they’ve been shy in trying to exploit.
“I don’t know what the Republicans are afraid of. Where are they? They’re telling us that they were in late in December so they can’t be here in January? What is this, one month on, one month off?” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday after House Democrats were blocked from opening the floor to discussion of the payroll tax cut.
“We were told with great vehemence [Thursday] that the Congress was in session,” the California Democrat continued, alluding to attacks launched against President Barack Obama’s controversial recess appointments. “That’s why we went to the floor ... to call upon the conferees to get to work.”
There have been, apparently, some phone calls between conferees. There's one wrinkle introduced by the White House that could complicate those negotiations. Recognizing that it has the upper hand in the debate, the White House announced Friday that it would include a federal pay increase in its fiscal 2013 budget, but an extension of the current pay freeze was one of the pay-fors that Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell had considered and House Republican included in their bill.
Never mind that this tax cut shouldn't have to be paid for to appease Republicans, since tax cuts for the wealthy had never had to be, it's a smart move for the White House to take. The GOP likes the idea of paying for the cuts on the back of public employees, so it's good for Democrats to reverse course on that one and restore some fairness to public employees.
Now, if Democrats were feeling particularly emboldened, they should scrap the idea of the payroll tax cut extension, and replace it with the more effective Making Work Pay tax credit. That substitution doesn't seem likely at this point, would be as effective of a populist message as the payroll tax cut, and a better policy option.