President Obama, with House Speaker John Boeher (L) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R).
It's not all smiles today. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
In yet another colossal waste of time, House Republicans have spent days on a doomed, larded-up, poison-pilled, must-pass piece of legislation that will not pass the Senate and is under a veto threat from the president. The vote will occur in a couple of hours, and the bill will probably pass, though it's not a given that Speaker Boehner will be able to keep his errant caucus together. The only thing it will achieve, however, is proving that the GOP is perfectly willing to
screw the little guy.
In order to not allow the GOP to turn this into another hostage-taking, Democrats are pushing back, hard.
Senate Democrats and the White House are executing a strategy to prevent House Republicans from jamming them with legislation to extend the current payroll tax cut that’s been larded up with GOP goodies, according to White House and Congressional aides. For all practical purposes, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has linked the payroll tax issue—and other key end-of-the-year issues—with legislation to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year. And he’s presenting Republicans with a choice: deal in good faith on the payroll tax issue, or trigger a government shutdown.
Democrats recognize that they've actually got the upper hand on this one, and are pressing it. Tying these extensions to the appropriations—in essence threatening a government shutdown that would be on the GOP's shoulders—is precisely what Reid needed to do. The White House is backing that up, with the president's commitment to vetoing this bill [pdf].
The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 3630. With only days left before taxes go up for 160 million hardworking Americans, H.R. 3630 plays politics at the expense of middle-class families. H.R. 3630 breaks the bipartisan agreement on spending cuts that was reached just a few months ago and would inevitably lead to pressure to cut investments in areas like education and clean energy. Furthermore, H.R. 3630 seeks to put the burden of paying for the bill on working families, while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies.
Instead of working together to find a balanced approach that will actually pass both Houses of the Congress, H.R. 3630 instead represents a choice to refight old political battles over health care and introduce ideological issues into what should be a simple debate about cutting taxes for the middle class.
This debate should not be about scoring political points. This debate should be about cutting taxes for the middle class.
If the President were presented with H.R. 3630, he would veto the bill.
After this wasted vote, there will be 72 hours for the House to get serious and find a way to both keep government running and pass these extensions.