More obstructionism =
raising taxes on the middle class!
House Republicans have leapt at every chance to accuse President Barack Obama of piling up record debt and weakening shaky entitlement programs.
But in a span of a few hours Monday afternoon, GOP leaders effectively stomped all over that message.
At the same time Republicans were railing at Obama for proposing a budget with a $1.3 trillion deficit, House GOP leaders proposed something many in their party thought impossible: adding $100 billion to the deficit by passing a 10-month extension of a Social Security payroll tax cut without paying for it.
The announcement shocked rank-and-file members, who were back in their House districts. Senate Republicans were likewise caught off guard — even one GOP leader who was trying to negotiate a compromise had no idea it was coming.
And conservative ire rose throughout the day, threatening to derail Speaker John Boehner’s plan to take the thorny issue off the table.
“
We need to stop bowing to political pressure and do the right thing and make sure we don’t bankrupt Social Security
,” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told POLITICO.
Added Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a former House GOP leader: “I think the whole policy is a bad policy.” Another former House member, Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, said: “The idea of not paying for it is kind of a new thing in our caucus. It really hadn’t been discussed.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said GOP leaders were “trapped.”
So the Tea Party is willing to let taxes go up! Good!
- Wait. I thought Social Security was a Ponzi scheme?
Republicans polled by Gallup recently didn’t have a problem with calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme (which for the record, it totally isn’t). But independents did, and there are signs that Rick Perry’s continued use of the term could hurt his electability.
So, Romney and Daniels (and others) say, don’t go near it. Apparently nobody told Capitol Hill.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who already dragged the GOP through a tough entitlement fight over his House Republican budget package, picked up on the phrase today on the the Laura Ingraham radio show.
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) joined in on the fun, too. While analyzing one of the presidential debates on radio TV recently, Coffman picked up on the shift in Perry’s rhetoric on Social Security — namely from “it’s unconstitutional” to “I’m going to fix it and protect it forever” — and praised it, while also jumping feet-first into the it’s a Ponzi Scheme camp.
“I think obviously it is a Ponzi scheme, but [Perry] has to say he is going to fix it,” Coffman said. “And he did that in the last debate where he didn’t do that in the first debate. Now I think that was positive.”
