"The White House helped to block a Republican-brokered deal on Wednesday to extend several middle-class tax cuts, fearful of a bill that could draw Democratic votes and dilute a Republican campaign theme, Republican negotiators said."
Got that? They decided to vote against the tax cut because too many Democrats would be for it, and they wouldn't be able to play politics with it.
That's not my spin on it. The Republicans actually SAID that.
"Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was still trying to negotiate. But Republican Congressional officials said the administration did not want a deal that Democratic lawmakers might support, giving them a tax-cutting credential, too.
Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had already said he would retain most of Mr. Bush's middle-class tax cuts, and many Democratic lawmakers said they would vote for a modest extension of the tax cuts even if the extension was not paid for.
"If the Democrats had been on the same side, it would have taken a lot of arrows out of the quiver,'' said one Republican staff member."
It doesn't get clearer than that. In order to prevent the Democrats from looking like they favored a tax cut, the Republicans BLOCKED a tax cut that they claimed to support because the Democrats favored it.
In other words, Bush killed the tax cut because too many people thought it was a good idea.
The Republicans have basically admitted that they AREN'T in favor of tax cuts for the middle class - they just like to PRETEND that they are so they can play politics.
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