A Foolish Consistency

Normally I save my news and blog reading for the morning, over coffee, because I find that when I'm still bleary-eyed and a little foggy, it's easier to take. But tonight, I'm glad I took one more pass through my Bloglines subscriptions. By way of Michael Froomkin over at Discourse.net, we find this (It's a long quote, but it was sooo hard to figure out what to excerpt):

At issue on Wednesday were three "middle-income tax cuts'' that were a central part of President Bush's tax packages of 2001 and 2003. The biggest was a $1,000 child tax credit, which will be reduced to $700 at the end of this year. The other two big measures set to expire are a reduction in the "marriage penalty," which pushes two-income families into higher tax brackets; and an expansion of the 10-percent tax bracket to cut taxes for more middle-income families.

House Republicans and the Bush administration had sought to make those tax cuts permanent, but ran into Senate Republican moderates who wanted any more tax cuts offset by either spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere.

On Tuesday night, after arduous negotiations, House and Senate Republicans thought they had reached a deal that would extend the tax cuts for just two years but not require that they be offset.

White House officials, though, insisted that the tax cuts be extended for at least five years, without paying for them through either tax increases or spending cuts. House Republicans, who had originally sought a five-year extension as well, backed away from the deal on Wednesday once it was clear the White House was not budging.

Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was still trying to negotiate. But Republican Congressional officials said the administration did not want a deal that Democratic lawmakers might support, giving them a tax-cutting credential, too.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had already said he would retain most of Mr. Bush's middle-class tax cuts, and many Democratic lawmakers said they would vote for a modest extension of the tax cuts even if the extension was not paid for.

"If the Democrats had been on the same side, it would have taken a lot of arrows out of the quiver,'' said one Republican staff member.

I'm almost speechless. Republican "moderates" thought that a teensy bit of fiscal reason might finally be in order, but were willing to let it slide if they got to reconsider in a couple years. The Democrats were willing to go along with that, and so it looked like this portion of the tax cuts would be extended for a bit while everyone figured out what to do next.

But rather than deliver the goods to the middle and lower income families targeted by these tax cuts, the White House and the New Republican Tribe killed the bill in order to prevent the Democrats from taking credit for any part of the the tax cuts. Of course, as George W. Bush has said, it's the haves and the have-mores who are his base. I can't wait for the spin on this one.

I should point out that this is entirely consistent with the behavior of the New Republican Tribe. Courtesy of The Gadflyer, we take a trip in the Wayback Machine to two whole months ago, when the New Republican Tribe was fuming about getting almost all of the judges they wanted out of the Senate. When the Democrats and the White House cut a deal to move 25 of 32 remaining judicial nominees through the confirmation process, in exchange for a commitment by Bush not to make any more recess appointments, this was the reaction:

Connie Mackey, vice president of government affairs at the Family Research Council, for example, attended a meeting hosted by über-conservative Paul Weyrich the day after Bush's deal with Daschle was announced. Mackey reportedly told White House staffers that the President was missing the bigger - and more politically salient - picture.

"We don't see the point [of the compromise]," Mackey told The Hill. "The strategy all along has been to show the obstructionist tactics of the Democrats. We've lost that tactic."

A week later, the editorial board of the Washington Times criticized the deal for the same reason, insisting that Republicans shouldn't be cooperating with Democrats; they should be "creat[ing] an opportunity for Democrats to filibuster."

"Given the election, it would be savvy to make Democrats go on the record as blocking the nation's business," the Times argued. "Such a strategy would turn the legislative negative of unfinished bills into a campaign positive by being able to blame obstructionist Democrats for the chamber coming to a halt.

I guess these people could be more consistently cynical and destructive, but I'm having a hard time imagining how. Oh, wait. From that same NYT article about the Republican tax cut opposition:

Perhaps in a bid to reduce tensions with Republican lawmakers, the White House offered a concession in another battle with Congress over a major highway spending bill. The administration had been threatening to veto any bill costing more than $256 billion, over six years, while the Senate had passed a bill that would spend $318 billion. On Wednesday, the White House said it would accept a bill that cost as much as $284 billion.

Though the impasse remained unresolved, the concession raised the possibility that lawmakers would be able to go back to their districts at the end of this week with a bill that includes scores of pet projects in almost every state.

Actual governing is apparently hard for the New Republican Tribe, even with majorities in the Senate and the House, and the George W. Bush Campaignistration in the White House but pork, well, pork is easy.

Update: The Washington Post coverage is even more damning:

On Tuesday night, congressional GOP leaders agreed to a modest, two-year extension of an expanded, 10 percent income tax bracket, a tax break for married couples and a $1,000-per-child tax credit. Congress passed those tax cuts last year, and they will expire at the end of 2004 unless Congress acts.

But White House officials urged Republicans to hold out for a longer extension more in line with the president's call to make the tax cuts permanent. Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. put in a round of angry phone calls Tuesday night, several Senate aides said. Then White House counselor Karl Rove and Bush himself called GOP tax writers yesterday urging them to kill the deal.

[...]

A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity so he could discuss legislative strategy, said Bush is confident that the gambit will work. Democrats and some moderate Republicans have pushed a shorter extension, offset by tax increases to reduce its impact on the budget deficit. But come September, the official said, the vote will be overwhelming for a longer extension without offsets.

"Do we run a risk?" the official said. "As this year has shown, it's very difficult to pass even what many would say is common-sense legislation. In this business you always run a risk." But, he added, "the Democrats don't want to be on the wrong side of family tax relief. . . . In this case a filibuster will be seen as stopping those tax cuts."

Karl Rove and George W. Bush himself shot this bill down. Karl Rove? George W. Bush's chief campaign strategist? Not someone from, say, the Office of Management and Budget? I also note in passing the sad attempt at spin by that anonymous "senior administration official", which really just makes it clear how ridiculous the New Republican Tribe is. They're complaining that it's hard for them to pass "common sense" legislation when they've got the House, the Senate, and the White House. Now that's pathetic.