It would appear that the Republicans are trying their best to deny the President a win by extending the Payroll Tax Cut. Once again they have proven to the American people that this has nothing to do with helping the citizens of this nation, but making sure the President doesn’t succeed.
The Republicans don’t give a hoot about the Middle Class. Just take a look at the presidential candidates. When asked at the Yahoo/ABC News Debate, not one of the candidates could provide an answer when asked to describe a time in their lives when they had to give up a luxury because of economic hardship. None of them. There is not one of these candidates that knows what it’s like to live from paycheck to paycheck. I seriously doubt that any of these candidates can even remember what a paycheck looks like.
Regardless of all that, by not passing the tax cut extension, they are essentially raising taxes. By their own words, not extending a tax cut is the same as raising taxes. That is what they said when the question about letting the Bush era tax cuts expire. Many of them have even signed pledges swearing to not raise taxes, yet they are still fighting tooth and nail against the payroll tax cut extension. Grover Norquist, the father of the no new taxes pledge, tells the Republicans that it does not go against their no new tax pledge to let these tax cuts expire.
The latest Republican version of the bill to extend the Payroll Tax Cut includes provisions that will require people receiving unemployment to take drug tests (which I’m not entirely opposed to), show they have a high school diploma or start GED classes, and force the President to make a decision on the Keystone Pipeline within 60 days.
(Those of you who don’t know what the Keystone Pipeline is, that is a whole separate post. Think of the Alaska pipeline running from North Dakota to South Texas. I will post on that in a few days.)
Sounds like hypocricy to me. But then again, I can hear with both ears, the left one and the right one.