White House To GOP: Only One Way Around Defense Cuts — And You’re Not Gonna Like It

[sofa king]

37. Yeah, that's going to be the stake in the heart for them.

Later in this election season a tax cut extension will be split into one for rich folks and one for everyone else.

Republicans in the Senate will feel compelled to vote in favor of both of them, but only the one for everyone else will pass.

Then massive public attention will be focused on the Republicans in the House, and they will proceed to hold our tax cuts hostage in return for an extension of the cuts for rich people. In an election year.

The Republicans will be compelled to do so because they've already been bought and paid for to do just that. And they're taking in more money than ever to continue to keep taxes low for the rich, no matter what.

But they will be on the wrong side of the very most important issue for seven out of ten Americans, in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. The Republicans are doing what the money tells them. The Democrats will ask their constituents to ask their own wallets which way to go.

And so control of the House will return to the Democrats. This was the now unalterable intent of the President's little rope-a-dope over the tax cuts thirteen months ago, to negotiate an expiration time frame that would force the Republicans to choose their masters over the voters.

But nobody has to believe all that yet. I'll be much more amused if nobody does.

(Second edit: I should also explain that this legislative trick will work especially well if the House stupidly decides to force the issue by passing an extension first. Then the Senate can get it, edit out all cuts for the wealthy, and hand it back, which will provide us with an unambiguous Republican vote against tax cuts for 150 million voters, which will doom them.)