Obama Likely Could Have Gotten Stand-Alone Payroll Tax Holiday

[sasha031]

Source: FDL

President Obama, in an attempt to sell the deal he cut on extending the Bush tax cuts, keeps holding up the one-year payroll tax holiday as his big win. Defenders of the deal, such as Ezra Klein, act like without this deal, there would be no way Obama could have gotten this payroll tax holiday. I think this is an inherent misunderstanding of the Republican position. Since well before this deal, I thought a payroll tax holiday was going to be one of the few big bipartisan things Obama and John Boehner would agree to. I have zero reason to believe Obama couldn’t have gotten the payroll holiday later as a stand-alone bill, completely separate major concessions to the GOP.

" The payroll tax holiday was never a progressive idea. It is rather weak stimulus and could work to undermine the program. The idea was advocated by the conservative American Enterprise Institute and Michael Boskin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The Republican Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels was, only two months ago, promoting a temporary, one-year “payroll tax holiday” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Even Mitch McConnell came out in support of a temporary payroll tax cut as an alternative to the stimulus bill in 2009."

Am I honestly to believe that in, say, February of 2011, if President Obama was to take the stage with Mitch Daniels and a bunch of conservative scholars to announce his support of a payroll tax cut, the Congressional Republicans would say no? I just don’t see Republicans being put on the spot and deciding to oppose a tax cut for working families.

Read more: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/12/08/obama-likely-could-have-gotten-stand-alone-payroll-tax-holiday/

[Angry Dragon]

1. Not a good idea

[DURHAM D]

2. The question is not "If he could have gotten it...?"

The question is why he (and Geithner and Summers) wanted it.

Of course he would have gotten it - every Republican in both houses would have voted for it.

[sasha031]

3. I find it disturbing, the ones who first advocated for the idea in the 1st place

The idea was advocated by the conservative American Enterprise Institute and Michael Boskin, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The Republican Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels was, only two months ago, promoting a temporary, one-year “payroll tax holiday” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.