Republicans Tuesday admitted they are taking a political pummeling from Democrats in the debate over whether to extend a popular Social Security tax cut set to expire this month.
While neither party has come up with a tax cut extension plan that can pass Congress, it’s the GOP that’s struggling to defend opposition to the various proposals to extend the tax cut, which would save the average family at least $1,000 next year.
“There certainly is ample evidence that the Democrats are winning this debate,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told The Washington Examiner after a closed-door meeting with the GOP conference on Tuesday afternoon. “Clearly, Republicans haven’t gotten our cohesive plan together.”
Democrats have criticized the GOP repeatedly in recent days over the party’s opposition to various proposals that would reduce employee contributions to Social Security by up to 3.1 percent.
“Republicans are doing their best to convince the American public that they support the payroll tax cut, that they’re not in favor of raising taxes for middle-class Americans, about 160 million of them,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters Tuesday. “But what a strange way of proving that’s how they feel.”
The Senate so far has rejected two plans, and most of of the opposition has come from GOP members who oppose raiding Social Security, which is already headed toward bankruptcy. Republicans oppose the Democratic plan to pay for the measure by increasing taxes on those who earn more than $1 million and they will move to block a third proposal later this week that includes a similar, but smaller tax.
Adding to the Democratic ammunition Tuesday was a decision by the Republican House leadership to postpone until next week a vote their own plan to extend the cut, a move that Reid said signals, “They’ve given up.”
Republicans say they are just searching for a plan to extend the tax cut that would win enough votes to pass while not raising taxes or depleting Social Security.
“I think we are losing the public relations battle right now,” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said, even though the Democratic plan, “is not based on good policy.”
Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said he believes Republicans need to convince the public that the Democratic plan is fiscally irresponsible.
“The White House has redefined this as a payroll tax deduction,” Kirk said. “It is not a payroll tax deduction, it’s contributions to Social Security and when the American people hear we have legislation moving forward to cut contributions to Social Security, and drive the trust fund way into the red, you would think opposition to this bill would be overwhelming.”
But Kirk’s argument has been drowned out by President Obama, who on Tuesday traveled to Kansas to tell voters he is defending the middle class against Republican lawmakers that, “have refused, under any circumstances, to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay the same tax rates they were paying when Bill Clinton was president.”
McCain said that Republicans must sell their own plan to the public as an alternative to the Social Security tax cut, one that would lower taxes across the board, reduce burdensome regulations on businesses and allow the repatriation of oversees corporate profits, which would help create jobs.
“We have to get back to the big picture and our view that business creates jobs, not government creates jobs,” McCain said.
