QOTD: Republican Tom Cole
by digby
Via Bold Progressives:
TOM COLE: Again, I would prefer not to raise taxes on anybody. But we protected almost every American. We did it at a higher income level than the President campaigned on. And again, frankly, we’ve denied him I think his most important piece of leverage in any negotiation going forward. So I particularly like that part. I understand unemployment extension. I prefer, you know, a more focused effort in that regard. But we do have parts of the country where that’s necessary and it’s a fair compromise. The entitlement issue, just too much to deal with I think in one piece of legislation. But again, still sequester is in front of us. The continuing resolution runs out the end of march and obviously the debt ceiling. All of those things honestly are Republican leverage not Democratic so I think there will be opportunities to deal with the spending issue next year. Honestly I expect that will be the dominant issue along with trying to overhaul the tax code going forward. So that’s usually pretty good ground for Republicans.
This is one Republican who was smart enough to make a tactical retreat and recognize that the battle then moves to much more favorable terrain. We'll see if his leader John Boehner can make it happen.
Update: Ok, here's QOTD II from HuffPost Hill:
The Republicans are finally going to take the advice Nancy Pelosi gave them weeks ago: Give your extreme members something to vote on for the hell of it, and then give a clean vote on the thing you want passed. If Pelosi can find a way to fund illegal wars, dammit, Boehner can figure out how to pass some tax cuts.
House leadership aides are whipping their conference to determine whether they have the votes needed to amend and pass the bill. Once they've gone through that motion -- they don't have the votes, unless the amendment repeals Dodd-Frank or something -- they'll figure out a way to allow a clean vote on the Senate bill and then we can all absorb ourselves into the debt ceiling, sequester and CR fight.
We call this governing.
At this writing we don't know if they'll pass the Senate Bill, but it looks like they will --- with a Democratic majority, which is a delicious irony considering all the sturm und drang. All I can say is that it's a Christmas miracle that they haven't found themselves being forced to vote for SS and Medicare cuts as well. I'll take that little victory. But never fear --- they'll be baaack.
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