Republican's love/hate relationship with Plan B

So it turns out their is an oxymoron with Republican's and Plan B.

Not that plan B.....

And I dont mean the oxymoron of the Republican's spending the last two years trying to take away a woman's right to Plan B and other contraceptives, only to hold an emergency session of the House to try pass Plan B into law.....this Plan B being their escape route off of the fiscal cliff.

And I dont mean the oxymoron that your supposed to take Plan B AFTER you've been screwed and Republican's are taking it to avoid getting screwed.

No I'm talking about what is actually in the Republican Plan B. See it turns out if you know anything about Republican philosophy you know that their basic economic idea for all situations is cut taxes and cut spending. And they refuse to pass any bill that doesnt either cut taxes and/or offset spending elsewhere in the budget.

So no tax increases and no bills that dont reduce the deficit. Thats the republican golden rule.

And that brings us back to Plan B. What does it do? Well thats simple it raises taxes on those who make more then 1 million dollars. Thats it. Thats the whole bill, it doesnt cut a damn thing.

So yes there you have it, the Republican oxymoron on Plan B, the Republican party is about to cast a bill that IS a tax INCREASE and PREVENTS spending cuts. All in the name of lower taxes and less spending.

Yea...I'll give you a minute to try to process that.

Now why exactly are they doing this? why are they about ready to pass a bill that is the actual antithesis of everything Republicans have stood for for 30 years?

See Plan B was simple. If republicans did nothing and we went off the cliff everyone's taxes would go up. And Republican's would be blamed for it. Now the thing is Republican's generally take to getting blamed for tax increases like a vampire to sunlight (and I dont mean the gay ass twilight kind).

In other words they would do anything in their power to avoid that. But the problem was, Obama knew that as well as the GOP did. And Obama and the Dem's made no real secret about the fact that if we went off the Fiscal cliff they would beat the GOP over the heads with the tax increases and make them look like the bad guys. And since the post election polling suggests thats how most American's will blame the GOP if we go over the cliff and an even larger amount dont like way the GOP been negotiating, it was a fairly effective bludgeon and big problem for republicans in "post going over the cliff" talks should those happen.

So the idea with plan B was to remove the Obama attack line against the GOP, and do something that in all honesty they were going to be forced to do anyways, raise taxes.

And of course the Democrats want taxes over 250,000 to go up, and the GOP offered only those over a million. If the Dem's the GOP "wins" by keeping taxes lower on a lot more people, and if the Dem's reject it (as expected) the tax increases are now the Dem's fault.  Not to mention it would make the Dem's look like the intransigence ones who cant take yes for an answer (to use an Obama line about Republicans)

And on top of that the only thing left to discuss are spending cuts, which while its true most people oppose the cuts the GOP is proposing, tend to be much too complicated for most people to follow, and given the recent cave by Obama on Social Security, may actually be strong ground for the GOP.

It's actually a fairly smart move by Speaker Boehner, do less of something your going to be forced to do anyways (raise taxes) in order to have a stronger hand later when debating the spending cuts.

There was one small problem however. The bill couldnt pass the Republican controlled House as written. Republicans would have voted it down. (and not that it mattered, Republicans in the Senate objected as well)

Turns out selling out for principles for a better hand later is a hard deal to sell and Boehner cant do it. In fact pretty much every right wing advocacy organization in the country is threatening to lower the various republican's rating with said advocacy groups if they supported it.

So so far, Plan B apparently isnt working as advertised.

Now I actually should point out originally that paragraph above was intended to be my last line, and set in future tense instead of present. But as I was writing this House Leader Eric Cantor basically made it known, they tweaked it just a bit, so that now it can pass the house. (see this is what happens when I try to be current some jackass changes the story half way though what I'm writing.... :P )

What they added in order to attempt to get the bill to pass the House, was a section that basically exempts the Defense department from any and all cuts caused by the sequester (the automatic spending cut that would trigger the fiscal cliff) or any further fiscal cliff negotiations. They also added language to cut spending for food stamps and Obamacare and rolls back wall street reform.

Which is a big problem for the Republican's and mean's Plan B has blown up in their faces (see this is why you have to drink water when you swallow pills....otherwise this shit happens).

Again remember what the goal of Plan B was, to totally reverse the optics and make the Democrats look unreasonable by giving them a good chunk of what they wanted with nothing in return.

And that's no longer what the bill does. it's now a straight up proposal for fixing the fiscal cliff with the added bonus of cutting wallstreet reform (which has no bearing either way on the deficit) and allowing for more bailouts....because hey why the fuck not?

And of course as a "total fix" Obama can now reject it for any number of reasons he so chooses (food stamp cuts hurt the poor, we need wallstreet reform, ect ect) and not look like the bad guy responsible for tax increases, and go back to hammering on the fact that most people want taxes on those paying more the 250,000 to go up, and the only reason they're own taxes are going up is because republicans wont bow to what is (agree or not) the majority opinion.

So as a strategy Plan B has already failed to do what the bill was supposed to do (get the GOP out of the "tax increase blame trap") no matter how the house votes.

And heres the thing, the potential damage doesnt stop there, See 6 months ago in May the house made their first attempt to avoid the sequester/fiscal cliff, and they passed a bill called the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act, which is basically identical to the new Plan B. And the SRRA did pass, 218-199.

But see heres the problem. 218 is EXACTLY the number of votes you have to have to pass a bill. Which means about 16 republican's defected on that vote and opposed it. And in a special election the Dem's picked up a seat, so they have one more seat that the GOP used to have, and its not from one of the defectors. So if those same 16 republicans oppose the bill now, that they opposed 6 month ago, it may still lose. (thanks to the new democrat whos voting against)

And if loses the republican proposal to solve the fiscal cliff just got taken out by republicans, which gives Obama all the leverage in the world to hammer them and force them to take a much more Obama friendly deal, since even their own party wont accept theirs, so Obama's becomes the only real plan on the table.

So John Boehner better freaking hope Eric Cantor is telling the truth about having 218 votes, this would not even be the 10th time this congress the republican's have only discovered during the voting they dont have the votes they expected.

There is also an added aspect of what I will call "bad luck".

See the original reason the Plan B vote was going to be held today is because the House only works 4 days a week (or 3, they take every other Monday off). So this is the last day before Christmas for the House, and the idea was to get people to head into Christmas knowing their taxes wouldnt go up (or blaming the democrats if they did). It was to provide that fiscal certainty republicans are so found of mentioning.

But Monday night Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii, the most senior member of the senate, passed away. As a result the Senate adjourned early so that they could attend his memorial and funeral services. They wont be back until the 27th. AKA after Christmas.

Which means no matter what, Plan B cant not even get to president Obama to sign before Christmas, no matter if passes the House or not, and even if was the original version of the bill, it still couldnt make it there in time.

So not only has the objective of Plan B blown up in the face of the GOP, where they now are taking the blame from a host of right wing donors and organizations for considering voting for a Tax increase which did not (originally) have spending cuts, they have nothing to show for it. And the timing of the bill blew up in their faces as well the bill wont pass in time to make a damn bit of difference for Christmas.

And all that assumes the bill passes at all.

I guess I understand why the Republican's want to take away a Woman's right to Plan B....they assume you also cant figure out how to make it work correctly.......


UPDATE. (9pm)

KABOOM! Well it appears Plan B blew up even more spectacularly then I expected.

Apprently, and my mistake here, the additional stuff that was added to Plan B, was done so it's own bill. And that bill passed with 215 votes (turned out enough people abstained to lower the threshold, which is unusual)

So the Republican's just voted for a bill that cuts food stamps, and take away the child tax credit and a few other lower and middle class tax deductions.

But as to Plan B itself? the original bill......yea they withdrew the bill.

So yea, if your middle class, congratulations. The GOP just voted to take away some of your tax credits, effectively raising your taxes. Then they neglected to pass the part of the bill to stop (in their own words) the "largest tax increase in history" from being added on top of that already higher rate. So yea your taxes just went up TWICE in one night. And if your poor, your taxes went up AND the GOP just passed a bill to take away your food stamps.

The only upside is it will never pass the senate....but still that's what the House just basically voted for.

All this because they cant do what the majority of Americans want, and vote to keep the bush tax cuts for the lower 98%.....they have to have it ALL or nothing.

So yea GO GOP you just voted to raise taxes on the middle class twice.........