What were the Repubs thinking when they voted to let tax cuts expire on December 31, 2012??

[kentuck]

They do not seem to govern for the future? They will cross that bridge when they get to it. That seems to be the way they vote on the issues?

They knew the tax cuts would expire. They knew all this, yet they voted for it anyway. Why?

What were they thinking??

[Kolesar]

1. It may have been because they forced the bill through "reconciliation"

Which made it filibuster proof.
I am sure that the 'pukes wanted to only state the ten year impact instead of the real, long term, impact of the deficit because of PR reasons. It made the bad idea easier to sell.

[Politicalboi]

2. They were maybe thinking

They would have won the election.

[doc03]

4. +1

[RomneyLies]

3. They were thinking there was no way to get the votes to pass the cuts normally in the Senate

Thus they were part of an Omnibus spending bill not subject to the filibuster.

Those sorts of bills must have an expiration date.

The cuts were extended two years ago.

[EC]

5. They thought

they'd have all 3 houses...

[Enrique]

6. Obama would have vetoed it if it didn't have that expiration date

and with the original Bush tax cuts, it was Republicans who insisted they had a sunset. No democrats voted for it, so all the negotiations were between Republicans.