Congressman: Dems Must ‘Create a Real Crisis’ to Force GOP on Tax Cut

In an interview with his home state’s public radio Thursday, Minnesota’s Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison suggested that Democratic lawmakers “need to create a real crisis” to force Republicans to renegotiate President Obama’s tax cut compromise.

As we’ve reported, Obama’s compromise would extend Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans while renewing public assistance to keep 2 million Americans from dropping off unemployment rolls in the coming weeks. On Thursday, a majority of House Democrats voted to reject the deal, including Ellison, the recently elected co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus.

Following the vote, Ellison told Minnesota public radio that he thinks Democrats “need to create a real crisis here so that the Republicans will have to answer for denying Americans unemployment benefits on the eve of the Christmas holiday. We let them off the hook in my opinion.”

Though Ellison praised President Obama for his deal-making, he went on to say that Republicans “exploited the president’s compassion for people“ and Democrats ”should have bargained harder because… we’re going to fundamentally shift the income spread in this country.” READ MORE...

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