Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is backing the GOP position on the Bush tax cuts.
After a press conference last week where he pressed his colleagues to back the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Lieberman called the GOP’s position — a temporary extension of all the cuts — the best plan he’s heard yet.
“I continue to believe that this is a bad time to raise anybody’s taxes and therefore the best suggestion I’ve heard, which I think could get bipartisan support, is to extend all the tax cuts for one or two years,” Lieberman said.
Prior to the election, Lieberman toyed with the idea of convening a group of senators to reach a tax cut compromise. He’s put those plans aside for the moment, to let party leaders work it out.
“I think what I decided at least for the lame duck is that this is going to happen at a pay grade higher than mine,” he said.
Now, before the lame duck session, Lieberman distinguished himself from the GOP by saying he had no interest in blocking middle-income tax cuts to force the Democrats’ hand on tax cuts for upper income Americans. But the plan he’s embracing — a temporary extension of all cuts — is as far as the GOP is willing to go, and basically punts this political fight a year or two into the future, when presidential politics will further complicate it.
