John Cornyn:
"My position is we need to maintain current tax rates as long as possible, and that's going to take 60 votes," Cornyn said. "I understand that neither party can do it alone, and I hope that we stave off those tax increases. My preference would be permanently, but if we can only do it temporarily, then, you know, I'm for doing whatever will keep the economy moving and put people back to work."
Effectively, Cornyn is taking the possibility of a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy off the table. Now he's desperately pushing for a temporary extension. Of course, if there is a temporary extension, Cornyn wants to make sure it applies not just to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy but also to the Obama tax cuts for middle-class. Why? Because he wants them joined at the hip so we can repeat this hostage crisis in a year or two.
Unfortunately for Cornyn and the GOP, his position is untenable. Everybody agrees that the Obama tax cuts for the middle-class should be extended and that they should be done so permanently. Assuming (for sake of argument) that Congress does pass a temporary one or two year extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the only reason to also make the Obama tax cuts for the middle-class temporary is if you want to keep them around as a bargaining chip for the next time that the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. And that's an argument that only a hostage taker could admire.
Now that Republicans like Cornyn are publicly conceding that that a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is off the table, Congress needs to act -- and act swiftly -- to enact a permanent extension of President Obama's tax cuts for the middle-class while simultaneously scheduling a debate and vote on whether there should be a temporary extension of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. The political environment isn't going to get any better than it is right now.
