Washington Post (emphasis mine):
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday backtracked from remarks he made Sunday suggesting he would support extending the Bush tax cuts only for households with incomes below $250,000 a year, as President Obama has proposed.
At a news conference on Capitol Hill, Boehner repeatedly emphasized that he would support only legislation that kept in place all of the tax cuts. He sidestepped questions about how he and Republicans would vote if Democrats insisted on pushing through a measure that ends the tax cut on household incomes of more than $250,000 a year. Tax cuts for all incomes that passed in 2001 and 2003 under President George W. Bush are due to expire at the end of this year.
"I want to extend all of the current tax cuts," Boehner said. "I want the speaker [Nancy Pelosi] to allow a fair and open debate on our two-point plan."
As I've been arguing, the best way for Democrats to retain the initiative here is to schedule two votes: one for the Obama tax cuts for the middle-class and the other for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. That way, nobody can hold either tax cut hostage.
Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi began the process of rallying her caucus to vote on the tax cut proposals, delivering an impassioned argument for enacting President Obama's middle-class tax relief proposal. Pollster Stan Greenberg presented survey research from Democracy Corps that shows Democrats will make big electoral gains by sticking to the tax proposal that President Obama has supported since the early days of his presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, even as GOP House Leader Boehner scrambled to recant his position from Sunday, Republicans in the Senate were divided over how to proceed. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a new $4 trillion tax cut package including not just Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy but also estate tax reductions for multimillionaires. That package would drive up interest on the national debt by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade and require an additional $3.9 trillion in borrowing.
But not all Republican senators are on board with McConnell's hardline position in favor of tax relief for the wealthy. Ohio's retiring GOP Senator, George Voinovich, said he might oppose extending the tax cuts for the wealthy contained in McConnell's plan, reminding reporters that he opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy when they were first proposed nearly one decade ago. Adding to the intrigue: a growing number of Republican Senators are proposing a temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, showing that even Republicans aren't willing to fall on their swords to defend extending tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
Bottom line: everything here points the Democrats being in a very, very strong position, politically speaking, and as long as they stand their ground and keep up the pressure on the GOP, they will come out on top in this battle.