An Embarrassing Retreat By Speaker Boehner

In the end, House Speaker John Boehner decided that this issue (The Payroll Tax Cut Bill) was not worth fighting for. And he was right. Somehow, despite being on the "pro-middle class" side of this issue, Boehner and his Republican caucus were being painted by the media, the President, and the Democrats as anti-tax cut! Despite the fact that the Republicans in the House HAD PASSED a One-Year Payroll Tax Cut, while the Senate had only passed a Two-Month Tax Cut! But our media chose to gloss over that fact and only focus on the Senate's actions. The Senate chose to pass a two month extension because they wanted to go home for Christmas. And then the Democratic President, despite being adamant about a one year extension just weeks before, now insisted that the only bill that should be passed is the Two Month Tax Cut.

I have lived in this Washington DC area for 23 years now (unfortunately!) and seen how very similar maneuvers were portrayed. When President George W. Bush cut taxes for the lower income groups resulting in $600 checks in the Summer of 2001, Democrats scoffed at the amount as being barely enough money to buy a Big Mac Meal a week. But in 2011, our current president just touted his tax cut as being enough to pay for a pizza meal for regular Americans.

And the Senate should have been pilloried for being so arrogant as to assume that their version of the bill would be passed without alteration by the House. They immediately began their one month Christmas vacation after that vote, which left the House in the untenable position of accepting the Senate's bill as it is, or rejecting it. One could easily imagine an outrage being instigated at the arrogant Senate but since it was a Democratic run body, it was ignored. The Senate was being treated as the reasonable ones when they were the ones who had punted the issue off to a new year so they could go on vacations.

There's more to write on this and I will revise and edit this post later.