county independents you talk about so much, and as a result, there has been paralysis in the republican party and it s chronic chaos. that s what voters are going to remember. let me give you one example. in arkansas s first congressional district, you had a congressman, rick crawford, on december 20th, puts out a press release demanding that boehner joining him, and on december 21nd, he put out another press release demanding that john boehner join him in a compromise. it looks to me like these people are willing to take a federal paycheck to be representatives and deal in a congressional body, but they play like they re still protesters. they re actually in the united states government, but they refuse to function in the government. let s look at this. after staying quiet most of the week, here s the real old dog republican, senate republican leader mitch mcconnell, he released a statement today calling for the house to pass that payroll tax extension. leader reid should appoint
whether he s got 200 people looking for scalps out there on that conference call with him, and he s saying, let s smoke the peace pipe, to use an old cowboy expression. and he wants to smoke the peace pipe, and these guys want to yell geronimo! again. i think he s the strangest leader for a tea party-led party. it doesn t seem like he s the right guy to lead these people. he s not, and apparently he s the one being led here. this has been a disastrous week for john boehner, a zradisastro week, ultimately, for the tea party wing of the house there, and ultimately, a disastrous week for the republican party. they ve been revealed here in this whole discussion about the payroll tax extension as a party that really is less interested in tax cuts, per se, than rewarding their rich benefactors. well, i remember when a tax cut for the middle class comes along, they don t like it. i remember somebody who was president who said if you cut taxes, the revenues will go up, not down. yo
$1,000 a year. what do you think here, grover? are republicans on the wrong side of the argument right now? the payroll tax cut? no, the republican position is that they ve passed a one-year extension. the democrats don t want a one-year extension, they want a tax increase. so the argument that somehow the republican position is not the pro-taxpayer position is silly. what s insulting is he said i made somebody take pledges. we offer the pledge to all republicans and democrats who run for office. say if you would like to commit in writing that you re against tax increases for your voters, here is how you do it. and as a point of fact, almost all republicans make that commitment, run on it, and what bothers the democrats is they lose elections because they re the party of higher taxes and spending and they got wiped out in 2010 by a lot of people who said i m coming to washington
is that what we are looking at? yes, absolutely. i don t see how speaker boehner s comments after senator mcconnell s comments help in this endeavor. the house republicans are in a heap of trouble. they are in a world of hurt right now and they are getting hit from the wall street journal editorial page to senator who is went out on a limit and vote and now are left out there hanging. the house speaker boehner gets out of this jam will be one of the great spectacles. thank you for joining us. that are does it for this edition of andrea mitchell reports. tamron hall has a look at what s next on the news nation. it is the great holiday expect cal. after president obama s newest push to pass the payroll tax extension, he warns it is about
i think it s more an excuse for why they didn t pass it. they have tried to come up with an explanation for why they wouldn t just go along with the two-month extension and negotiate after the first of the year. and so what they ve hit on is, well, gee, this is going to be really complicated for employers. it would seem to me that just continuing current law will allow payrolls to stay set up exactly where they are now. and i don t think the senate s going to come back just to do one month. but washington is one extra month. but washington s so crazy right now, who knows what s going to happen. who knows what can happen, e.j. word to you here, what can come out positively out of the gop out of all of this. what might it be? well, the silver lining is it somehow gets done. the payroll taxes get extended and you know, you move on to the next thing. the bottom line for republicans is we can talk about all the political damage that they re doing themselves right now and that they have