Leading House progressives are joining outside advocates to pressure Democratic leaders to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans to expire at the end of the year.
In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Progressive Caucus co-chairs Lynn Woolsey and Raul Grijalva gently make the case for extending tax cuts to middle-income brackets alone.
As Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, we would like to reiterate our support for President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget proposal that would extend the Bush tax rates for the middle class, but permit the tax levels to return to previous levels for single taxpayers making more than $200,000 or married couples making more than $250,000,” the co-chairs write. “We respectfully request that we have a Caucus discussion regarding our position before any proposal is brought to the Floor.
You can read the entire letter here.
Late last week, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka made a similar appeal. “We need to focus on creating jobs by giving tax breaks only to middle class families and investing in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and green technologies,” he said in a statement. “Millionaires and Wall Street already had their party, which tanked our economy and left Main Street stuck paying the bill.”
But, of course, the White House has already acknowledged that it’s going to cut a deal on the top-income tax cuts, and even hinted it might cave to GOP demands that all of Bush tax cuts be extended for the same amount of time.
Indeed, it’s unclear how much leverage House progressives have in this fight. If Dems bow to GOP demands, then a unified Republican party, along with conservative Democrats, could pass a temporary extension of all the rates. But if leadership decides not to cave, then the calculation changes pretty dramatically. If Pelosi and other leaders decide to make the middle income cuts permanent, and extend the top-income cuts for a year or two Republicans might bolt. That is when House progressives would be able to throw their weight around and demand that the top-income cuts expire immediately.
As long as Republicans are at the table, though, progressives’ influence will be limited.
The one place where progressives could make things interesting is in the Senate. If members there promised to filibuster the GOP approach, leaders would be have a difficult time rounding up 60 votes for it, and that could change the direction of the whole debate.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for developments along these lines.
