Waiting For The Inevitable Democratic Cave On The Payroll Tax Cut

The Democrats have the Republicans right where they should want them.  The GOP keeps rejecting bills to extend the payroll tax for another year, which the Democrats want to pay for with a surtax on millionaires and billionaires.  Is there a better way to encapsulate the stark difference between the two parties?

The various reasons put forth by the Republicans for refusing to support the payroll tax extension at the expense of the wealthy are not credible.  They say it would undermine Social Security.  Not true.  They say it would  hurt small business owners.  Not true.

Finally realizing the political importance of passing the payroll tax cut extension, the Republican leadership's next gambit was to load up the bill with the what Joan McCarter refers to as "crazy-ass sweeteners" to get the crazy-ass House Republicans to go along. These include: "restarting the Keystone XL pipeline, cutting jobless benefits in half, targeting environmental rules, slicing money out of Obama’s health care law and limiting the Medicare benefits the wealthy can get."

The Senate Democrats, of course, can't back down.  As Politico reports: "if, and when, the GOP is forced to accept a paltry deal that doesn’t include any of the conservatives’ prized items, it could weaken GOP leadership’s position and bring Congress to a standstill just days before Christmas."

And most of all Democrats can't give in on the surtax to the wealthy -- an issue with such enormous resonance for the 99%.  

So, what's the latest? It is being reported that ">Senate Democrats are seriously weighing scrapping the surtax on millionaires, which Republicans hate, and replacing it with a series of cost-cutting offsets that can win GOP backing."

"Seriously considering?"  They can't be serious.