http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/14/tax-bill-now-its-the-tea-_n_796849.htmlNot to be outdone by their liberal counterparts, conservatives are working themselves into a state of dismay over what they disparagingly call "The Obama Compromise" tax bill. Some key conservative activists and consultants claim that the bill could fail in the House because of growing grassroots opposition among Tea Party types - the mirror opposite of last week's Democratic concern about liberals torpedoing the same legislation.
"The sand is shifting under this very fast," said Craig Shirley, a Washington consultant who advises the Tea Party Patriots among other groups. "If it doesn't get voted on soon, it could get voted down." That's probably an exaggeration. It's hard to imagine the GOP as a whole voting down a bill with close to $1 trillion in tax cuts. But it is growing more obvious by the minute that Republican leaders underestimated the internal political risks of the deal.
The would-be presidential candidates are noticing -- and responding. Eager to curry favor with the anti-establishment right wing in his own party, and eager to show his supply-side businessman bona fides, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came out against the deal today in an op-ed piece in USA Today. His main objection: that the tax cuts would only last for two years, not enough time, he said, to lure companies into making the kind of long-range investments that create lots of jobs.
Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin oppose the deal, arguing that the GOP can get a better one once they take control of the House in January, and focusing on the fact that the deal does nothing to rein in runaway federal spending. "The answer to concerns like these is to cut spending," said Shirley, "and the bill doesn't address it."