House GOP Makes Critical Mistake

The House GOP has been playing political blackmail with President Obama and the Democrats since they returned to the majority in 2010. They simply oppose whatever the Democrats try to do, until the Democrats give in and give the Republicans whatever it is they want. They have used this tactic to seriously slash social programs, cut EPA funding, force an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and kill numerous Democratic attempts to create jobs. Evidently they thought they could do this one more time -- and give their buddies in Big Oil a nice payday by forcing the president to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

A few days ago, the Senate approved a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut the president had asked for. The extension would give them time to return after the holidays and negotiate extending the extension for the entire year. The bill also put off for those two months a cut to Medicare payments to doctors and allowed unemployment benefits to continue. Most people thought this was a reasonable bill, since all three things would change at the end of this month if the bill was not approved -- and this would let Congress go home for the holidays.

But that was not good enough for the House GOP members. Since the payroll tax cuts (and unemployment benefits and full Medicare payments) would end on December 31st, they thought they had the perfect opportunity to blackmail the Democrats once again. They wanted to force the Democrats to go ahead and do the extensions for a full year -- and include the pipeline approval in the bill. They were so sure of themselves that in a caucus meeting Monday night, where they decided to kill the two-month extension, they even called themselves heroes and compared themselves to William Wallace (the Scottish hero of the movie Braveheart).


They probably should have studied their history a little closer though (or at least have stayed until the end of that movie). William Wallace was hanged, drawn, and quartered by the English (the above picture is of his trial). And the House Republicans may have just done the political equivalent of that to themselves. On Tuesday, they voted to kill the payroll tax cut. The vote was 229-193, and every one of those 229 votes was a Republican vote.

The House expected the Senate Democrats to quickly get back to Washington and go into a conference committee with Republicans, where Republicans could force a rewriting of the bill to their specifications. But that didn't happen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, remembering that he does have a spine he can use, refused to do that saying, "I will not re-open negotiations until the House follows through and passes this agreement." He went on to say the Republicans would be responsible for 160 million workers getting a tax increase, over 2 million people losing their unemployment benefits, and millions of senior citizens finding it harder to get treatment from their doctors.

This leaves the House Republicans swinging in the wind (from a rope they strung up themselves). They are left looking like the bad guys in this mess (since it was only Republican votes that killed the extension (all Democrats voted for it), and they are now getting scared. House Speaker John Boehner is now begging the president to order Senate Democrats to appoint some conferees and go to the negotiating table (as Republicans had thought they would be forced to do).  But the president doesn't have the authority to order that, and even if he did, why should he save the House Republicans from their own attempt at political suicide? They certainly wouldn't reciprocate.

This leaves the Republicans between a rock and a hard place. They must either take another vote and approve the two-month extension, or they must take the blame for what will happen on January 1st when they don't. And that's not going to make those 160 million workers, 2 million unemployed, and millions of elderly people very happy. And it's likely they'll take their unhappiness out on House Republicans in the next election.

The Republicans were playing a dangerous political game -- and it backfired on them. All the Democrats need to do is stand firm for now. Even if they are able to negotiate full extensions after returning in January (as I suspect they will), this will just give them more ammunition to use against the Republicans in the next election.