If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on TwitterWASHINGTON (AP) — When last seen in Washington, House Republicans were furious with their own leader, Speaker John Boehner, and angry with their Senate Republican brethren over how the showdown over the Social Security tax cut turned into a year-end political debacle.
The holidays and three weeks away from the Capitol have tempered some of the bad feelings, but several GOP lawmakers’ emotions are still raw as Congress returns for a 2012 session certain to be driven by election-year politics and fierce fights over the size and scope of government and its taxing, spending and borrowing practices.
In the week before Christmas, House Republicans revolted against the Senate-passed deal to extend the payroll tax cut for two months for 160 million workers and ensure jobless benefits for millions more long-term unemployed. Facing intense political pressure, Boehner, R-Ohio, caved, daring tea partyers and other dissenters to challenge his decision to pass the short-term plan without a roll-call vote. None stepped forward to stop him.
“A lot of us who went into battle turned around and no one was behind us,” freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said last week, sounding like the fight was still fresh and insistent that leadership had abandoned them.
“A lot of us are still smarting,” he added.
The two-month extension that Senate Republican and Democratic leaders Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid had characterized as a draw ended up as a big victory for President Barack Obama at the end of a year in which Republicans had forced him to accept a series of spending cuts.
Joined Nov 11, 2007
31,929 Blog Posts
Its funny how grandma votes republican to save money on avoiding to pay taxes and then gets angry when medicare is threatened to be cut.
Cant have it both ways people, cut taxes and have your services cut, or raise taxes and get more benefits.
wait, I stand corrected. Grandma doesnt pay taxes anymore. Shes part of that 50% of americans that dont pay federal income taxes.
Their flaw is they believed in the system, and everyone believed in the promises when social security was promised that it would actually be delivered without needing any financing or plan to deal with the gap in the demographics. The money was never saved for SS and medicare which it should have been, and instead was spent, and used to fund government’s golden parachute retirement.
Well the people have been paying into the system their entire lives, so of course they think they deserve their money back.
They do deserve it and they will get it. Assuming that major changes are made very quickly, even us Gen X’ers should see a decent SS check when we get to that point in our lives.