John Boehner's Last Stand on Payroll Tax Cut

The ultimate demonstration of the hypocrisy of the Republicans. They support every tax cut they say.
Only one problem is that when it comes to middle class tax cuts all of a sudden they
balk. Typical B.S. politics.

By the way Politico.com is a Conservative website.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70148.html
John Boehner’s last stand on payroll tax cut extension

The political message to Boehner's colleagues is, bluntly, don’t screw this up. | AP Photo Close
By JAKE SHERMAN & MANU RAJU | 12/8/11 11:39 PM EST

House Speaker John Boehner’s path to delivering the payroll tax cut to President Barack Obama involves a lot of political bluster, a pile of legislative sweeteners and a dash of hope.

The political message to his colleagues is, bluntly, don’t screw this up. In a meeting Thursday morning with House Republicans in the same Longworth Office Building room where he was elected speaker, Boehner reminded Republicans they’ve already cut spending, changed the culture of the Capitol and stopped Obama’s agenda in its tracks.


“The big prize is 2012,” Boehner said, according to several sources in the room.

The stakes on the payroll tax are high for Boehner, who has to contend with Democrats in the Senate plotting their own next steps.

Senate Democrats are seriously weighing scrapping the surtax on millionaires, which Republicans hate, and replacing it with a series of cost-cutting offsets that can win GOP backing, according to people familiar with the talks. They’re also weighing whether to keep the focus strictly on the payroll tax or lump it into a broader package that will extend the host of programs expiring at year’s end.

The goal for both parties is to win final approval on their terms — and appear reasonable in the eyes of a skeptical public.

But Boehner first has to get something past House Republicans.

The speaker has tossed in a series of sweeteners to get the GOP to support the payroll tax: restarting the Keystone XL pipeline, cutting jobless benefits in half, targeting environmental rules, slicing money out of Obama’s health care law and limiting the Medicare benefits the wealthy can get. In exchange, they’ll give Obama the political victory and get out of town for the rest of 2011.

But it’s a gamble. Boehner’s hope is that the Senate and Obama accept the right-leaning bill. And when they don’t — Democrats are sure to remove most of those prized items — the speaker will have to rely on enough Republicans backing a final compromise.

What it could amount to is the House Republicans’ last stand — the last big risk they’ll have to take for Boehner in 2011. Leadership has told them simply: Cutting taxes is a political win, and they’re exacting concessions from Obama.

In the past few days, the tide has turned within the House Republican majority — many were against the payroll tax cut, but now, they’re coalescing around the idea due to a mix of Obama’s possible veto, further spending reductions and the specter of further defanging Democratic priorities, like the health care law.

But the downside for Republicans is likely to come if Senate Democrats don’t budge. Boehner’s strategy relies on the upper chamber — and Obama — accepting some combination of restarting the Keystone XL pipeline, slashes to the health care law and a federal pay freeze.

If, and when, the GOP is forced to accept a paltry deal that doesn’t include any of the conservatives’ prized items, it could weaken GOP leadership’s position and bring Congress to a standstill just days before Christmas.

“The risk is, no matter what we send [to the Senate], it goes nowhere,” Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said. “I think this is probably the best-principled position to take. It’s a good place to start. What the Senate does with it, who knows, but chances are not much based on what they’ve done in the past. So we’ll probably be back here again, having a conversation unless they take it seriously.


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