Some in GOP urge lawmakers to back tax hikes for changes in safety-net programs

[Brewman_Jax]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/b...l_cuzheads

From the article:

Quote:A growing chorus of Republicans is urging House leaders to abandon their staunch opposition to higher tax rates for the wealthy with the aim of clearing the way for a broad deal that would also rein in the cost of federal health and retirement programs.

With less than a month before the “fiscal cliff” deadline, President Obama remains adamant about allowing tax rates to rise for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers. Without such a deal, he is “absolutely” ready to go over the cliff, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Wednesday on CNBC.

Many GOP centrists and some conservatives are calling on House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to concede on rates now, while he still has some leverage to demand something in return. Republicans are eager to win changes to fast-growing safety-net programs, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare and applying a less-generous measure of inflation to Social Security benefits.

After Dec. 31, tax rates for most Americans, including the wealthy, are set to automatically rise, and this could cost Republicans a key bargaining chip in winning changes to entitlements.

...

The repubs' plan is more clear. Since they and their fellow teabaggers couldn't make PBO a one-term President AND they took a beating in the last election, they're going back to the old GOP plan: attack social programs. They're even madder that they have no public support and can't do much more than stall the inevitable. They won't quit and they won't learn.

[suzie]

It's aggravating to read the MSM's insistence that Republicans are abandoning their opposition to tax hikes as if they've suddenly become reasonable, without examining what "closing the loopholes", and "entitlement reforms" mean.

[72ptheriot]

I think they will give in. I don't think they will learn anything though. They are just putting a fight to show they backers that they tried but had to give in. Just to save face with their party. I don't see what other choice they have.

[MilesColtrane]

(12-11-2012 09:52 AM)72ptheriot Wrote:  I don't see what other choice they have.

Don't bet on it.

Congressional Republicans have proven that they will put party over country and damage the national economy if they don't get their way.

Do you remember the GOP...

...shutting down the federal government in 1995 and 1996?

...filibustering and killing the American Jobs Act?

...holding up the President's nominations for the board of the Federal Reserve because they didn't like its aggressive use of quantitative easing to stimulate the economy?

...threatening to default on the U.S. debt, sending the financial markets reeling?

...then cutting 30 billion in discretionary spending as part of the deal they made to avoid that default, further slowing the nascent recovery?

...threatening to shut down the government yet again, in 2011, if 38 billion in cuts to food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs weren't part of the budget deal?