re: #94 Targetpractice, Worst of Both Worlds

True, but the big point about the payroll tax fight is that the GOP has been playing the “tax cuts are life!” bit to the hilt since ‘09, so their hypocrisy when it comes to tax cuts that help the middle class, when they were willing to keep Congress in session every day through the holidays last year just to get the Bush Tax Cuts extended, is glaring to the point of being visible from space.

The GOP leadership only put the unemployment benefits into the same bill because they don’t want to be seen as throwing millions of unemployed folks to the wolves in an election year, even though they’d be totally okay with doing so any other time.

Yes, agreed.

And yet because they did, even though the immediate optics are bad (as you stated) the longer hit will be worse. Unemployment is not a respecter of political party, and thanks to this noise everyone knows it’s the R’s stopping them from happening this time.