Paul Ryan, the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, doesn't like the idea of holding a separate vote on permanently extending middle-income tax cuts, an approach that he calls "decoupling." Instead, Ryan wants to hold middle-income tax cuts hostage to give Republicans the leverage they need to pass upper-income tax cuts. Naturally, Ryan predicts President Obama and Democrats will cave:
Transcript:
Obviously, the president is not going to accept permanence. I think he will accept not decoupling the tax cuts, meaning some permanent, some temporary. So I think all of them will be moving forward temporary. And the Democrats control the lame duck, as you know Mika, so it's a question of how long they will be extended for, and that's the question the Democrats will have to decide. They control this during the lame duck. It's much better if you do this during the lame duck.
Obviously, just because Ryan is predicting that Democrats will cave doesn't mean they will. Indeed, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Democrats are actively considering holding a vote on middle-income tax cuts without extending upper-income tax cuts.
As Ryan concedes, if Democrats want to follow that path, there's nothing Republicans can do -- Dems control the levers of power and can pretty much do whatever they want during the lame duck session.
And now, perhaps fearing that Dems will recognize the power they have, Republicans are threatening to hold another group hostage: two million Americans who need to receive unemployment insurance benefits. Unless the upper-income tax cuts are extended, the GOP says, they'll oppose aid for Americans who need it most.
So the question is: what do Democrats want to do? Do they want to cave to Republicans? Or do they want to stick to their principles and do call the GOP's bluff? The choice is theirs. Fight or flight? What will it be?
