obama wants to raise taxes, the republicans want to reduce spending. the republicans are going to win this fight, obama s not going to get his tax increase, and we will get the one-year extension. it may happen this week, may happen in two months, but the effort to lie and say that the democrats in the senate who are not allowing the bill to move forward are somehow in favor of the bill, strikes me as odd. both sides agree sooner is better than later. grover, standby, i know you want to watch this with me. we have the democrats responding and making statements on this very issue. take a listen. unemployment benefits will expire over the next 60 days for 2.3 million americans. and 48 million americans, seniors on medicare, will have the security of having their doctors available put at risk. we ought not to be creating that kind of uncertainty and anxiety among the american people. the stakes are too high.
barney frank was having any doubts about his decision to retire from congress at the end of his term, this week s debacle over the payroll tax extension probably serves as a really good convincer, and it looks like he s already fleshing out plans for when his time on capitol hill is up. frank took the time to make a blog post on the hill. quote, with more free time on my horizon, i have decided to diversify my activity, and as part of that i have compiled a retirement songbook which i will fill up with some of my new leisure time. what follows is the annotated version of the song titles, jingles and other fragments, suitably an an at a timed. and here s some of the highlights that follow. to be chanted on the last day of the 112th congress. no more hearings, no more votes, no more out of context quotes. and there s there advice that frank received from a colleague on how to avoid looking awkward while marching in a parade. quote, take three steps and wave to the left, and then take thr
a week and a half ago. in fact, all eight of the people who speaker boehner appointed to be his so-called negotiators were against any payroll tax extension for the middle class two weeks ago, so what we said is ratify the two-month deal first and then the senate leadership, i m amongst them, will get on a plane and negotiate a an extension for the year, but we re not going to fall for this idea that is endemic in washington. when you want to kill something and you don t want your fingerprints on it, you say send it to a committee. speaker boehner has time and time again moved the goalposts back back. said get rid of the millionaire s tax and maybe he ll pass it. he didn t. he said lower the percentage from 3 to 2, and he wanted the pipeline, swallowed out and put it in there and you can t negotiate with that. negotiating with speaker boehner is like nailing jell-o to the wall. we need him to pass this two-month deal which would give us some degree of assurance that both he and his c
to be arguing about politics and process. the republicans contention that the two-month compromise somehow unworkable is simply untrue. if it were, we wouldn t see a new and desperate republican proposal today to settle on a three-monex tension. speaker boehner says he and his members want a one-year extension. we want that too. now, he offered a bill he talked about and the house passed a bill. he talks about it had no mark-up in the ways and means committee and passed three days after it was introduced. in the middle of december. just days ago. but he expected, i suppose, the senate to take it whole, they didn t. what did the senate do? they did what americans are asking us to do. they came together, reasoned together, and voted together, 89
who were against any deal at all a week and a half ago. in fact, all eight of the people who speaker boehner appointed to be his so-called negotiators were against any payroll tax extension for the middle class two weeks ago, so what we said is ratify the two-month deal first and then the senate leadership, i m amongst them, will get on a plane and negotiate a an extension for the year, but we re not going to fall for this idea that is endemic in washington. when you want to kill something and you don t want your fingerprints on it, you say send it to a committee. speaker boehner has time and time again moved the goalposts back back. said get rid of the millionaire s tax and maybe he ll pass it. he didn t. he said lower the percentage from 3 to 2, and he wanted the pipeline, swallowed out and put it in there and you can t