Pelosi: Maybe We CAN Do Tax Cuts Before the Election

It's not really a tax cut but an extension of the current tax rates in order to avoid a big increase, but Pelosi is starting to realize this may be her last best hope of retaining the Speaker's chair:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, under pressure to send Democrats home to campaign with the strongest possible closing argument, said Friday she is considering calling a vote on extending middle-class tax cuts next week.

Democrats, however, are divided on whether forcing a recorded vote on the issue before congressional elections in November would be politically helpful as they fight to maintain control of Congress.

"We will retain the right to proceed as we choose," Pelosi told reporters. "We'll take it one day at a time."

The most sweeping tax cuts in a generation, enacted in 2001 and 2003, are due to expire in January. Republicans want to extend all the tax cuts. President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress want to extend them for individuals making less than $200,000 and married couples making less than $250,000.

If Congress does not act, taxpayers at every income level face significant tax increases.

Obama has been pushing for a vote by year's end to extend middle-class tax cuts. But House Democrats — much like their Senate counterparts — are divided. Republicans and a few Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for everyone, even the wealthiest Americans.

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid chose to postpone consideration of the tax cut extension until a lame duck session scheduled to convene Nov. 15.

House Democrats had hoped the Senate would act first, before the election, to narrow the question of which tax cuts to preserve. Sensing the impasse and wary of being branded tax hikers before Election Day, more than 30 rank-and-file House Democrats urged Pelosi to extend all tax cuts, at least temporarily.

Once again Harry Reid has left the House Dems hanging, just like he did on cap-and-tax and some other key liberal issues. Even if Pelosi schedules a House vote on extending the Bush tax cuts nothing will become law until the Senate passes it, and it doesn't look like that could happen until after the election. Pelosi will go through this whole exercise and probably won't get any political benefit from it.