Schumer predicts GOP will fold in payroll fight

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday predicted the GOP will fold and said Democrats should wait out House Republicans over the payroll tax cut extension. 

“In a few days, they will fold unless someone falls for these subterfuges, which get them off the hook without producing a middle-class tax cut,” he said on MSNBC. 

House Republicans the previous day delayed a vote on the Senate-passed bill that would extend the payroll tax cut for two months. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other House Republicans have said the legislation needs to be extended for an entire year and they are willing to stay in Washington until it gets done.

{mosads}The House has planned a vote on Tuesday to send the bill to conference with the Senate. Schumer slammed the move, calling it an up-or-down vote “with no up.”

“In Washington, when you want to kill something but not have your own fingerprints on it, send it to a committee,” he said. “It’s a subterfuge, it’s a joke, it’s a way to kill the middle-class tax cut. … If this was the first thing that Speaker Boehner proposed, of course, maybe we’d entertain it.”

He went on to slam Boehner for losing “all good faith” in negotiations.

Schumer said Senate Democrats should “let the pressure mount day in, day out” leading up to the deadline at the end of the year when the payroll tax cut is set to expire.

“Republicans are losing on their signature issue, which is tax cuts on the middle class,” he said.