Called Tom Price’s DC office and registered my desire that he vote “no” on Plan B.

I am trying to be devil’s advocate here, what is the alternative course of action? All of the tax cuts are set to expire so I am not sure what you can do. It’s hard to justify that a small tax increase on millionaires is worse than a much larger tax increase on the entire population. I might personally prefer the latter so that ppl actually have a stake in their government but politicians don’t think that way. It’s hard to make a rational argument that tax increases on everybody is better than a small tax increase on 1% of the population.

Speaker Boehner is putting House Republicans on record as voting for a tax increase, I think this is a terrible idea.

The Senate (controlled by the Dems) are NOT going to pass either of these two bills. And even if they do, the President will veto both of them. At either of those two points, blame completely shifts to the Dems in the Senate and/or the President. They wanted to :”tax the rich (people making $1mil or more)”. Well here it is. Well, why didn’t you pass it or sign it? Because… ummmmmmm… (crickets and word fumbling soon follow).

This entirely stupid scenario has occurred for two procedural reasons. First, the government passed into a law a “temporary” tax cut that was to expire in 8 years. Second, the government passed into law the “sequester” to hold itself hostage. Both of these were dumb and short sighted. What is our goal here? To avoid being “put on the record” as is the public debate was some kind of jury trial that would result in an upcoming verdict and then end? I humbly suggest that preserving the lowest possible tax rates for 99% of the population is better than raising it on everyone. It will be very difficult to control spending if the economy goes into recession. If all the rates go up, we will go into recession.

i’m going to go to lunch instead of calling. i played this game before and watched the speaker roll over and he looks like he’s got company now. its time to let obama have it his way and see if America will say enough again in 2014.
i have no doubt the next 2 years are going to bad enough where if America is going to say enough, it’ll show up at the polls; but all this is a lost cause; 2013 is going to be bad and if the house limits it to some people or by a spending cap; you won’t be able to tell the difference as obamacare rolls out and employers all over hunker down and lay off people as they see actual costs hit their books.

If the GOP insists on including >$1M continuation of the tax cuts, then the Dems will point out that they GOP would punish the “Middle Class” in order to try protect “the rich” by “holding the Middle Cass hostage.” The Dems and MSM will run on that and they will use it to win big in ’14.

Sadly, Erick is playing right into this stereotype. Voting against a bill that stops tax hikes for most Americans just because top earners aren’t included is exactly what the Democrats want Republicans to do. STOP HELPING THE TAX & SPEND DEMOCRATS!

Taxes for everyone are going up regardless of what the GOP does. By passing a bill to keep the tax cuts for <1$M earners, they will be able to at least partially deflect this.

The principled thing to do when facing a situation where taxes will necessarily go up for everyone is to minimize the advantage that the Dems will have.

Well, one thing is sure…either Eric or Erick can’t count. We shall see.

Ya I understand that thinking. It certainly would look like the Republicans weren’t compromising at all though. I think this is a difficult spot to be in for sure. I mean Obama won the election.

Thy Dems protest too much. It took them about 5 minutes to declare Plan B DOA which tells me they are afraid of it; if they oppose it, they are not for the middle-class and the Reps are trying to protect everyone they can, not just the 1%. It cuts both ways. With the vote scheduled for around 7:30pm, Reid has already announced that the Senate would adjourn tonight or tomorrow to leave for HI. Are the chickens running scared and away when there’s a hard vote to take that might actually pass?
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If this passes the House and the Dems fail to pass it, then the Dems will own the largest tax increase in history. We can wring our hands over this all day saying the Rep. party of no/low taxes just caved. In the end, the prez and Dems WANT to go over the cliff and have tax increases raised on everyone.
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We could play chicken with the cliff and pretend that if Plan B fails to pass or the talks collapse, O & Reid won’t introduce a tax “decrease” in the new year for those under $250K, but I wouldn’t bank on that happening. Where will that get us? Backed into O’s corner giving him his campaign wish since the Reps. couldn’t say no to that after all the rates increase next year.
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I say pass Plan B, only if the conservative Reps. get a guarantee that Rover won’t cave on the debt ceiling fight. It’s our best manuever right now to get the Dems to deny that the rates stay the same for the middle-class they so love to be for and “protect”.

She is not a leader, she is an opportunist.

My Congressman is Shuster. He is second generation establishment GOP and a newly minted transportation committee chairman. He does what he is told.

Yes, and we disagree with him, because neither that nor Plan B has a chance of passing, so using the Plan B vote as some kind of litmus test is silly.

I don’t think Republicans should vote for that.

After all, the people have spoken. And they must be punished.

NO!!!
The debt ceiling is a terribly blunt instrument. The budget is better. Chances are, we’ll get neither.

Not really, we’re letting it burn either way. That’s why i’m in favor of Plan B- Boehner is moving in the direction of L.I.B. since it is D.O.A. It’s the best chance of giving the people what they voted for, with real spending cuts as well, which is why many House Republicans will support it and should not be faulted for it, although most are probably trying to keep as much of the tax cuts as possible as well.

Oh, that increases the chances of chucking him, which most Conservatives seem to vociferously support.

Other than that, we don’t really disagree.

The debt ceiling is worthless. It will always get raised. It always does. It’s a waste of legislative effort to keep it in place. It should be permanently eliminated.

Samsara, now I know what you meant earlier today! Not a good way to lead if you don’t have the votes. Wow.

At least we can extract some cuts with the debt ceiling. Isnt’ that what Newt did, shut the gov. down twice did to get to a balanced budget? It’s our last defense IMO.

There’s a difference between shutting the government down and sparking a sovereign default, which would trigger a global meltdown.

Good for him. He was thinking clearly.

Boehner needed plan B to have a defensible credible alternative to Obama’s position. The GOP needed that to avoid the blame on the fiscal cliff and have a path to resolution. Now we have none. GOP is on record to allowing all the taxes to go up and refusing to bend just to save millionaires… after a year of Obama casting the GOP as the ‘party of the rich’ did we really want that?!? The tax revenues and impact involved is LESS than what Boehner and other Republicans have already conceded to (eg with loophole closure).

This is the reaction from the other side: “What a disastrous, embarrassing, epic FAIL! Republicans can’t legislate, Boehner can’t control his nut-jobs, and they all run out of town rather than stay and do the people’s work. They are in shambles!
Can’t even pass their OWN legislation! Pass the popcorn!”

Basically, tagging the GOP as nutjobs who cant govern will be the Democrat meme. Expect it. Our rebuttal?

Don’t yell at me Freedom’sT’- I didn’t get to vote! Agree Rover shouldn’t have been so bold w/o knowing the vote outcome. It’s hard for me to see how the GOP takes the blame for a vote that didn’t happen and was declared DOA by Reid and vetod by BO if it DID pass. The press will fry them no matter what. Maybe it’s a good thing conservatives voted their conscience and told Rover to back off on inane deals with the devil incarnate.

Agree and the gov. can fulfill it’s Constitutional obligations without a sovereign default. We only have to pay for the interest on debt, debt payments and entitlements. So we don’t fund NEA or EPA for a few months? A good thing IMO. Newt did it for 21 days and we’re still here.

Ya I don’t disagree with that

The government would move money around, it would take months for actual default to happen. The democrats would be in more of a panic imo.