This might not suck as much as we think. There is a thought that that extending the Bush tax cuts for MOST Americans is a good thing - the Dems would of never done it.
Spending cuts need to be done and we did lose there. But I see no reason to beat up ourselves and to try not spin this as win for the Reps.
I mean really, the Dems fell for the Rep play and extended the Bush Tax Cuts on the middle class while Obama raised the payroll tax on the poor as well as all Americans.
They were extended permanently, something Republicans wanted but couldn't do in the 10 years since they originally passed, The two prior passes of them 2003 and 2010 both had expiration dates, and yes, were unpaid for which is part of the reason the first run of them expired in the first place, and the AMT fix too. And some of the spending is temporary.
Republicans had no chance at beating O, or at least many here seeing them as beating him, at this, because they had very scrambled messages.
First it was about blocking tax increases, yet they were not blocking automatically timed tax increases by killing House bills, Jan 1 this became apparent as that was the official day taxes went up.
Then it was about deficits, and about spending. So they opposed passing these tax cuts because of deficits yet opposed any tax increases so were against tax cut extensions?
Rush talks about ‘low information voters’
But what information?? That is why most of us knew the outcome ahead of time.
Lastly, this was only made possible by Bohner putting the bill up for a vote, and they House Rs will vote him back in tomorrow. All the NOs were Kabuki. It was just a show.