Republicans Won't Compromise On Tax Cuts, Democrats Should Play Hardball and Let Them Expire...

I would just like to point out that this is the 1000th article to appear on The Midnight Review!  Here's to the next 1000 posts (and the comments that follow)!

While the Republican party's strategy for the past two years has been to obstruct anything proposed by the Democrats, with their recent gains at the polls the Republicans now believe they have some added clout in Washington.  While they screamed in the past for bipartisanship, they now refuse to work with Democrats altogether.  Renee Schoof wrote the following for The Miami Herald:

Republicans leader in both the House and the Senate said Sunday there would be no compromise with Democrats on whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest taxpayers.

President Barack Obama has said he wants to extend the tax cuts for taxpayers with a combined annual income of less than $250,000, but that the cuts shouldbe eliminated for people making more than that. He's suggested there might be room for compromise in discussions with Republicans on other tax issues.

But both Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., who's expected to become the majority leader in the House when the new Congress is sworn in next year, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday news programs that they'd insist on an extension of the tax cuts for wealthy. McConnell said that higher taxes on upper income earners would harm small businesses.

"We can't negotiate it this morning but our view is don't raise taxes on small business," McConnell said on CBS "Face the Nation."

Hopefully the Democrats take a cue from the GOP playbook from the past couple years.  If the GOP is unwilling to make any compromises, the Democrats should just allow the tax cuts to expire altogether.  The Democrats can then stress that the Republican's unwillingness to compromise caused the tax cuts to end - doesn't that sound a bit like accusations they had made against Democrats during the health care debate?

I also find the Republican viewpoint pretty offensive - remember the Democrats still represent a large percentage of voters in the House and a majority in the Senate.  For the Republicans to decide to go it alone would be a slap in the face to millions of Americans - apparently the GOP believes that the American electorate need to do what they say.  Again, remember when the GOP was in the minority and they made claims that they were being ignored?