Pipeline jobs a poor swap for safe environment
20.05.12
Pretend it is 2007. There is a battle in Congress over a tax cut. Who would you say is refusing to pass the tax cut without bringing in extraneous issues? I need not tell you, for you already see my point.
What has happened to the GOP in just four short years? Why did the party that embraced a movement calling itself the Taxed Enough Already party, and the party in which most members have signed Grover Norquists pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstances, this month try to block a tax cut from being extended?
The answer is more complicated than it might seem. On the one hand, there is the fact that Mitch McConnell has, rather candidly, told us that the No. 1 priority for Republicans is to make President Obama a one-term president.
The best thing going for the Republicans in this task is the poor state of the U.S. economy, and that Obamas fate seems to be tied to this mast. If the economy sinks, Obama sinks; if the economy picks up, Obama picks up. There are modest signs that the economy is improving, but a failure to extend the payroll tax holiday would have crippled this growth. Can we really be such Machiavellians as to suggest that the Republicans would sacrifice the economy to get the White House back, however? I leave the calculus to the reader.
Source: The Tennessean