Congressional Republicans are hoping that payroll taxes on working Americans go up after the first of next year so that they can blame Barack Obama, who actually doesn’t want those taxes to go up.
Ezra Klein EXPLAINS the situation:
In recent weeks, the politics of taxes seem to have flipped. Now it’s Democrats calling for the extension of a tax cut and Republicans arguing for a tax increase.
The tax cut in question, of course, is the payroll tax cut, which adds about $1,000 to the paycheck of the average American and which is set to expire at the end of this year. Republicans who were willing to let the federal government default on its debt to prevent even a hint of a tax increase are now willing to permit a $120 billion tax increase for next year. The question is, why?
One possible answer is that a large tax increase in an election year is good for them because it’s bad for President Obama and the economy.
