The congressional Democratic leadership has now caved on putting Obama's middle class tax cuts up for a vote before the election. The ostensible reason is that the Republicans have blocked it -- but we also know that part of the reason is a certain number of waivering Democrats.
So what would happen if we could pass middle class tax cuts with just a majority in both the House and Senate, and with no threat of filibusters? Well, there is a way...
In short, the Democratic party needs to do what the Republicans did in 2001 and 2003 -- pass the tax cuts using reconciliation.
Sure, the Republicans will scream bloody murder over using reconcilation to cut taxes. They'll probably claim it's a complete betrayal of the political process. Maybe they'll even claim that it's not intended to be used for this sort of major legislation. But considering that both of their major tax cuts (which they are now trying to extend) were passed the same way, that's an argument that is easily won by the Democratic party. For that matter, I suspect that the Republicans will (once again) turn into deficit hawks in response to a middle class tax cut proposal -- which will make them look really stupid when they try to argue out the other sides of their mouths why the (bigger) tax cuts that they support wouldn't be an issue for increasing the deficit.
And, of course, the drawback is that middle class tax cuts passed with reconcilation will have an expiration date, just as did the Republican tax cuts. But so what? Get those middle class tax cuts entrenched for a decade or so, and we can have this discussion again in ten years. That beats the hell out of the alternatives: no tax cuts for the middle class, or a very short term (probably two years) tax cut for both the middle class and the wealthy.
The beauty of this proposal is that it's something that the Democratic leadership could make happen very quickly. And since it wouldn't require supermajorities, it would be filibuster proof. A handful of Blue Dogs could still vote against it without derailing a reconcilation tax cut, while the majority of Democrats who did vote for it would be able to claim a massive victory.
The politics of a reconciliation tax cut are great. The result -- a middle class tax break -- is also good policy. So with a little bit of courage and conviction, there's no reason that President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi couldn't make this a reality before election day!