Posted on 12/03/2012 8:24:00 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Republican Doomsday Plan: Cave on Taxes, Vote 'Present'
By Jonathan Karl | ABC OTUS News
Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely. It's quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more: no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.
Two senior Republican elected officials tell me this doomsday plan is becoming the most likely scenario. A top GOP House leadership aide confirms the plan is under consideration, but says Speaker Boehner has made no decision on whether to pursue it.
Under one variation of this Doomsday Plan, House Republicans would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote "present" on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.
By doing this, Republicans avoid taking blame for tax increases on 98 percent of income tax payers. As one senior Republican in Congress told me, "You don't take a hostage you aren't willing to shoot." Republicans aren't willing to kill the middle class tax cuts, even if extending them alone will make it harder to later extend tax cuts on the wealthy.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an influential conservative House Republican, is already on record supporting extending the middle class tax cuts - with or without the upper income tax cuts. On Sunday, he said Republicans should embrace the extension of the middle class tax cuts and take credit for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Fine with me.
Good!
That would force the Dems own the economy.
Ditto.
It’s the least they can do.
No vote to cut the mddle two rates by 10%.
Good plan. Blubbering Boehner better not screw it up.
The thing is, the Senate already passed this.
The House does not have to force the Senate to do anything else, if the House takes this path.
Rep Bonehead (aka, Boehner) can’t even vote present, can he?
After all, what’s left of his RINObrain hasn’t been conscious for the past thousand years or so.
Republicans are sooooo dead.
Long live the Tea Party.
You can’t give away the tax hikes without getting anything back.
Run over the cliff. That way we at least get spending caps out of the deal.
If people want lots of government goodies, they are going to have to pay lots of government taxes. Shielding the middle class from this simple reality does not help us.
Hit the gas.
The question would be, could the MSM spin it to blame the repubs anyway?
(not “would” - you know they would if they could)
agree 1000%....this has been my view from the get-go; vote present and put it in the rats laps...
I read that as “Republican Doomsday Plan: Cave in Texas, Vote ‘Present’”
I’d have voted “present” a few years ago to the local caves but they’re no longer civil defense shelters stocked with MREs.
The thing is - there’s not enough taxable wealth “out there” to afford the goodies that are being demanded.
Oh, and BTW... If the Republicans think voting “present” is going to get them off the hook for raising taxes, they have another thing coming!
We sent them to Congress to control taxes. They get no credit if they refuse to do their damn jobs! Voting present might as well be an “AYE” vote, as far as I am concerned.
In fact, I would respect a Congresscritter who actually voted AYE more than I would somebody who took the easy way out by voting “Present”. If the Republicans take this approach, I am one TeaPartier who will never support them again.
I guess I’m slowly becoming a believe in this.
Exactly. So maybe if people realize they have to pay the bills themselves, they will stop voting themselves goodies from the Treasury.
I am not going to vote to give myself a thousand dollars cash if I know that it will cost me two thousand dollars after the government gets done with all the postage and handling. But if I think I am going to get the money for free, why not?
Voting present is the coward's way out. If the GOP is afraid to stand on principle then it deserves to die.
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