Republicans Lose Tax Issue to Obama

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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December 21, 2011

Republicans Lose Tax Issue to Obama

A Wall Street Journal editorial skewers Republicans for their handling of the payroll tax cut extension.

"The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play... We wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest... At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly... The alternative is more chaotic retreat and the return of all-Democratic rule."

Bloomberg notes the issue feeds into President Obama's "campaign narrative that House Republicans' obstructionism has resulted in a do-nothing Congress at a time when middle-class Americans need help in a struggling economy."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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December 21, 2011