House Republicans: Don’t Play the Game
By: Erick Erickson (Diary)
January 1st, 2013 at 10:15 AM
Last night, without any legislative language, the Senate Republicans and Democrats voted to raise taxes. They did not just vote to raise income taxes. They voted to raise the payroll tax on all Americans.
This will hurt small businesses.
Ironically, this plan generates less revenue than even John Boehner’s Plan B option. But both options, as I have long maintained, were only about breaking the will of the GOP and getting the GOP to violate its tax pledge.
Well, today the White House is telling Fox New’s Ed Henry that this was the game all along. According to Ed Henry, the White House staff is saying that getting the GOP to break their tax pledge is, “One of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple of decades.” The plan cuts $1.00 in spending for every $41.00 in tax increases. Contrary to what Senator Pat Toomey is claiming today, everyone’s taxes will also go up – the 99% and the 1%.
That will be the headline if the House Republicans vote for this plan.
Mike Lee, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul were defiant. They know what is at stake.
Now, many of you think this is the best deal we can get. I understand that. But consider this — the White House has designed this solely for purposes of getting the GOP to break their tax pledge. Any way we play the game we lose.
The only way to even think of winning is to not play this game.
House Republicans should reject this deal, go over the cliff, and then from any vantage point they will not be voting to raise taxes. They can shift the argument from tax increases and decreases to tax reform.
They should go over the cliff.
As a side note, it will be interesting to see if Paul Ryan votes for this plan after Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, but 2016 contenders, voted against it. Like TARP in 2008, this vote will separate the conservatives from the Republicans.
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