Is the GOP in Trouble After the House Payroll Tax Cut Debacle?

Some say that the House rejection of the the payroll tax cut extension may cost the GOP the 2012 election

December 21, 2011 RSS Feed Print

Tuesday, the House Republicans rejected a bipartisan compromise the Senate overwhelmingly approved to extend the payroll tax cuts for two months. The rejection came days before the tax cuts are set to expire December 31, and many senators had already left Washington for their holiday recess. In a USA Today op-ed Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner called for President Obama to step in, and blamed Senate Democrats for "refusing to return from vacation and negotiate with the House." If the cuts expired, they would cost the average family $1,000 annually, or $40 a week as a Twitter hashtag campaign sponsored by the White House reminded Americans.

[Check out 2011: The Year in Cartoons.]

Yet many think Boehner is to blame for this, yet another Washington stalement. Insiders suggest he approved of the Senate deal, but then changed his position to appease Tea Party House members who didn't approve of the bill. Argued TJS's Peter Fenn,

Anyone who is watching the inmates take over the asylum that is becoming the Republican caucus has got to fear for the country—and the Republican party… Speaker Boehner is in real trouble on this one and he knows it; he is better off to cut the crazies loose in his own party, make a deal with Democrats and reasonable Republicans, and move on.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal criticized the GOP for allowing the "fiasco" to give Obama an extra 2012 political boost:

Senate Republicans say Mr. Boehner had signed off on the two-month extension, but House Members revolted over the weekend and so the Speaker flipped within 24 hours… If Republicans didn't want to extend the payroll tax cut on the merits, then they should have put together a strategy and the arguments for defeating it and explained why.

However rather than presenting a united front, GOP senators and representatives are now taking public swipes at their chamber counterparts over the debacle.

What do you think? Did the House's rejection of the payroll tax cut extension do the GOP more harm than good? Take the poll and comment below.

Previously: Can Ron Paul Win the 2012 Republican Nomination?

Tags:: Republican Party,; Congress,; John Boehner

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John "Crybaby" Boehner , Eric "Cut Throat" Cantor, and Mitch "over the hill" McConnell are all.......
BUZZARDS!! They prey on poor and middle class American citizens. They DON'T CARE AT ALL about what happens to the average American citizen, as long as their political agenda is addressed. And.... how can they "LOOK IN THE MIRROR" at themselves with all the HATRED in their hard hearts for our GREAT PRESIDENT, PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA? Murphy's Law is sure going to "COME OUT AN' BITE "EM!!"
Thanks to the TEA PARTY "BUZZARDS" and all of the Republican "LOW LIFE BUZZARDS", they are helping to reelect "OUR (and THEIR) President, President Barack Obama!!

J, a concerned DEMOCRAT of NC 8:41AM January 02, 2012

SSI IS COLLAPSING...
Is it really smart to cut its funding? Furthermore, extending it for 2 months is just a cheap, vote whoring trick.
In other words, business as usual in D.C..
We need a serious plan to save the America - not another sleazy, counter productive scheme.
It won’t be easy to put this train wreck back on the track - but if there is any hope of salvaging at least a remnant of our former greatness it must include some combination of the following steps.
1. Eliminate the Capital Gains Tax for investment in companies that create jobs based on a preset formula.
2. Reduce corporate income taxes based on a "jobs" formula. Raise taxes on exec pay. Salaries and bonuses at 400 times that of the average worker are obscene
3. Massive tax incentives for companies who bring "out sourced" foreign jobs and investment capital back home - Penalties for those who don't.
4. Put the "hard green" agenda in the trash bin. Dogmatic regulations make competition difficult, and result in higher costs for business and consumers, and fewer jobs.
5. Forget National Health Care. Merely subsidize a percentage of the premiums for low income families. Medicare for folks over 50 or with preexisting conditions. Hog tie the trial lawyers, and allow free competition in the marketplace. There's no need to dismantle the whole system and raise everyone's taxes to fix a few glitches.
6. Start drilling everywhere - including off shore - especially in California, and Alaska (remember, offshore drilling actually reduces natural seepage from undersea fissures). Tweak shale oil, natural gas and clean coal technology. Stop tearing down damns because of fish and frog worries, and fast track nuclear plants. Build that pipeline. Low cost energy is a must for our economy. The Algore-rithms for Global Warming are faulty - Get a life and move on Al.
7. Stop the ethanol fiasco - families need less expensive food - not more expensive gas. Ethanol shortens the life of engines, reduces MPG, and creates more pollution in its production than it saves by its use.
8. Cut government red tape to the bone from the city to the federal level. Building projects need to be fast-tracked - not tied in regulatory knots over a thousand issues with Environmentalist theology. Government needs to "relearn" common sense and sound judgment. Stop micromanaging and creating roadblocks over insignificant issues. We're in an economic war - Get a move on!
9. Close that southern border! Deport those who are here less than 5 years. Fine companies who hire illegals.
10. Schools need to stop downgrading blue collar jobs. We need industry and God knows there is no shame in hard work. Everyone can't shuffle paper or be a computer wizard. A service economy is a dead end.
11. It's sunset for the empire. Pull back the frontiers of the realm.
12. Most importantly, reduce government spending - at all levels - by 10%, immediately.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 12:11PM December 22, 2011

The GOP's Antoinette moment is here! The GOP threw the poor and working class under the bus, blamed the Democrats, and went on vacation. Many will have to forgo bread over Christmas. "Let them eat cake," sayeth the haughty GOP, "we're on vacation!"
They did not do the work we sent them to DC to do. I think its time for a raise! If America votes these rats, America deserves what it gets.
The GOP Antoinette moment is full blown. In the same week, Iraq has gone into full civil war, and all the GOP propaganda, the drivel my ears have been forced to endure for a decade, is naked for all to see. It may have been believed at home, but the Iraqis didn't believe it any more than they believed we were there to give them democracy.
And, as if to stamp the GOP Antoinette moment in blood, the GOP are so lazy, as they have always been, in Iraq, when we left, we just chucked the evidence we had been hiding about the Haditha massacres in a dump, and it took less than a week for the Iraqis to find it. No soldier Manning to torture, no Wikileaks to blame, the full US military obscenity is revealed to the world. Make no mistake about it, all three wars are GOP wars.
Three wars? Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on Americans, all three GOP wars.

Oneye of AK 6:27AM December 22, 2011

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Is the GOP in Trouble After the House Payroll Tax Cut Debacle?

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