Payroll Tax Cut

GOP Goes To War With Itself Over Payroll Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 5:30PM

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) conducts a news conference along with fellow GOP members on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on November 30, 2011.

A civil war between House Republicans and their Senate counterparts had gone public over the possibility that the GOP will be held to blame if the current payroll tax cut expires on January 1. The Senators feel abandoned after having voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to pass a two month extension of the holiday -- only to have conservatives in the House GOP conference reject it publicly, and insult the legislation itself.

GOP Leaders on both sides of the Capitol are trying to contain the fallout, but with vulnerable Senate Republicans exposed, and the payroll tax cut set to lapse in less than two weeks, that's a tall order.

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Payroll Tax Cut

Standoff: A Guide To The Ongoing Fight Over The Payroll Tax Cut

Brian Beutler | December 19, 2011, 1:25PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

At a Capitol press conference Monday morning, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he expects his members will kill the bipartisan, Senate-passed, two-month payroll tax cut bill. Instead he said Republicans will insist that Senate Democrats return to Washington and hash out the differences between that package, and the partisan one-year bill the House GOP passed a week ago.

That's setting up a new round in the ongoing fight over how to prevent that tax cut -- and other expiring policies like emergency unemployment benefits, and reimbursement rates for Medicare physicians -- from expiring.

Where we go from here depends on Boehner making good on his threat. To that end House and Senate Democrats, along with key Senate Republicans -- who voted for the compromise measure, and whom Boehner is hanging out to dry -- are pressing the House GOP to follow through on the deal.

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Allen West

Allen West: 'If Joseph Goebbels Was Around, He'd Be Very Proud Of The Democrat Party'

Eric Kleefeld | December 15, 2011, 6:22PM

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) delivers the keynote address at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. on February 12, 2011.

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has thrown another rhetorical bombshell, the Washington Post reports: Comparing Democrats' political messaging to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany!

West was responding to poll data, showing that Americans are blaming Republicans for the lack of compromise in Congress, and viewing the GOP as "more extreme" than the Dems.

"If Joseph Goebbels was around, he'd be very proud of the Democrat Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine," West told reporters during House votes Thursday afternoon. "Let's be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit with this and enabling them to get that type of message out."

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