Twitter Trashes Republicans Over Tax Cut Fiasco

Over at Republican Narrative Central the high priests of political mischief need to take Frank Luntz off speaker this afternoon and spend some time on Twitter instead. #40dollars, the hashtag du jour started by the Obama White House, has turned the abstract, highly politicized idea of whether or not the payroll tax cut should be extended for two months or twelve months into concrete examples of what $40 means to a struggling American public. Whether the numbers add up or not, this is raw sentiment gleaned from the American public at Christmas, the most financially trying time of the year, conveniently packaged into soundbite sized morsels cable news directors will be only too happy to broadcast tonight. WiccanGirl77  #40dollars is just enough gas to take my disabled husband to his dr appt at the VA hospital almost 100 miles away toniej#40dollars is the cost of my son's prescription not covered by insurance.A note to John Boehner, and any other half wit Republican in the House of Representatives who insists on standing with him: if you are for a year long tax cut extension, then you have ALREADY AGREED IN PRINCIPLE with the necessity of the short term 60 day extension that is now on the table. I don’t have to tell you, if you are a part of the House Republican leadership, what the email from your pollsters tomorrow is going to say about the toll this is taking on your standing with the public.daniella038  #40dollars pays my half of the electric bill, or my car insurance, for the month.HananHSJ  #40dollars produce for a family of 3 for one week. Milk and eggs for one month. If you are a Republican who has been content to let the leadership of your party squander the next eleven months with their maniacal fixation on bringing down the Obama presidency while completely ignoring the needs of flesh and blood Americans like the ones who are composing these tweets in favor of pin striped lobbyists and fat cat donors, you might want to read the editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal. 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. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco   The Wall Street Journal I don’t have to tell you, if you are one of the GOP presidential nominees, how this jeopardizes the elaborate plans you and your donors have to put a full court press on the White House and President Obama’s re-election efforts for 2012.Gobrooklyn   #40dollars would get me a round trip ticket to DC so I could tell House Republicans to stop playing w/people's lives. #thisisnotagame