Mitch McConnell Throws House GOP Under the Bus

If Mitch McConnell was hoping to be the Senate Majority Leader again, he just made that much less likely for once again backing Obama in a political fight against Speaker John Boehner and the House GOP (Disclaimer, this piece written by a liberal Washington Post columnist):

If this doesn’t break the logjam, nothing will: Senator Mitch McConnell is now calling on John Boehner to come in from the cold and pass the Senate payroll tax extension plan...

What this means: McConnell has now explicitly endorsed the compromise that Senate Dems have been offering House Republicans: You pass the Senate two-month extension; and we’ll enter into talks over how to compromise on the year-long extension you want. Coming from McConnell, this statement knocks the legs out from the primary House Republican argument: That we must not pass the two-month extension, because we need to pass a year-long one for the same of “certainty” to the American people. As McConnell sensibly points out, these two things are not “mutually exclusive.”

This statement again underscores just how isolated House Republicans have become in this fight. Earlier this morning, House GOPers held a press conference in the Capitol to dig in further. As Chris Van Hollen put it a few moments ago at a subsequent presser, the only people that don’t want the Senate bill passed are the House Republicans who held that presser today. That the Republican Senate leader issued his statement calling on House Republicans to acquiesce to the Dem approach only moments after they mounted their last stand of sorts only reinforces that picture.

The bias kind of shines through, doesn't it.

Boehner has been fighting for a year-long resolution to bring some stability to the job market and the economy.  He's right to hold out for a better deal, and if it means those tax breaks expire on January 1st, so be it.  If Boehner caves on this deal he certainly won't get a better one in two months.  In fact, instead of fighting for a year-long tax deal the GOP will end up defending against a new millionaire's tax which is what the Dems and their #Occupy minions really want.

And I think it's time the Senate GOP picked a new leader.  McConnell is simply not a team player.