Boehner just announced that they will agree to the two month extension, while he held back tears (seriously – it looked like they were ready to come out!). Here’s what it is:
- The House will agree to the Senate bill by anonymous consent
- The Senate will immediately appoint conferees to hammer out the differences towards a full year extension in the coming weeks.
Boehner’s trying to spin the conferees as a victory, but that was essentially the game plan of a two month extension over all. Now we will have to see if that can happen. If Boehner sticks to the original conferees he announced earlier this week, that may not happen. Five out of eight of them have previously voiced strong opposition to the tax cut at all.
So we can breath through the holidays and a little into the New Year, but the fight will pick back-up after that. The Democrats need to hold their ground and President Obama needs to leverage the power of the State of the Union address to keep the heat on the party of “no”.