House Republicans, discouraged by the slow pace of negotiations with the White House, will move their own bill that would hike tax rates on income above $1 million, Speaker John Boehner told his colleagues on Tuesday morning.
Boehner (R-Ohio) told President Barack Obama of his plan last night on a phone call, according to sources. The “Plan B” bill would keep the Bush-era tax rates on income under $1 million.
Boehner’s announcement shows that six weeks of talks with Obama have yielded no agreement, even as tax rates are set to jump back to Clinton-era levels at the end of the month and “sequestration,” tens of billions of dollars of spending cuts for the Pentagon and other federal agencies, kick in on Jan. 2.
“Speaker Boehner’s ‘plan B’ is the farthest thing from a balanced approach,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement. “It will not protect middle class families because it cannot pass both Houses of Congress. The Senate bill is the only ‘plan B’ that can be signed into law and prevent taxes from rising by $2,200 on the average middle-class family.”
It’s not really clear what it is Boehner’s trying to accomplish here. Politico reports that the bill is “one way House Republicans will avoid blame if the nation goes over the cliff,” but polling shows that avoiding blame is a hopeless strategy for the GOP. If we go over the cliff, Republicans take the blame — and it doesn’t matter whether we go over sideways, backwards, or upside down. The bill doesn’t even address the sequester, which means it’s meant as some sort of dynamite to break up a logjam.
What I think is happening is that Boehner knows he can’t talk the House Crazypants Caucus into accepting any sort of deal at all and he has absolutely no idea what to do about it, because he has such poor leadership skills. He’s placing his hopes in the good graces of Lady Luck, rather than good planning. I don’t see how that’s going to work out well for him.
