Politics over policy
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
(CNN) -- When it comes down to a choice between good politics and good policy, which usually wins?
Let's put it this way: We don't call it the political Play of the Week for nothing.
The child tax credit, tax breaks for two-income married couples. More taxpayers in the lowest tax bracket.
All tax cuts that help the middle class are set to expire this year.
Using an implied threat, President Bush has been campaigning all year to make those tax cuts permanent.
"If they don't make these tax cuts permanent, it means they're raising taxes on people with families," Bush said in March. "It means they're raising taxes on people who are married. It means they're raising taxes on people who are in the 10 percent bracket."
For a long time, a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans resisted, claiming that extending the tax cuts would worsen the deficit unless Congress found a way to pay for them.
But this week, with the tax cuts set to expire and an election looming, the resisters gave in.
"My advice to my colleagues is, when they're dealing politically on the floor, you deal with it any way you need to deal with it," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.
John Kerry issued a statement saying, "I support middle-class tax cuts, including the tax package now being considered in Congress.''
Suddenly it was a done deal. A bill extending the tax cuts passed the Senate 92 to 3.
House Republicans voted for it unanimously.
Two-thirds of House Democrats voted for it, too.
The cost of extending the tax cuts? $146 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next 10 years the public debt will nearly double, to $8 trillion.
Politically, however, it's a no brainer.
"They believe that we won't notice that they're running us deeper and deeper into deficit" Rep. Charles Rangel, D-New York, said Wednesday. "But since they have no awareness or don't care about it, then once again we have a political issue that's brought to us on the floor."
Politics triumphs over policy. After all, it's the political Play of the Week.
It's very difficult for members of Congress to defend a vote to raise middle-class taxes. Will their opponents attack them for voting for a tax cut that increases the deficit? Don't count on it.
