Unhappy Dems must see tax deal as a do-or-die proposition

House Democrats threw some- thing of a tantrum Thursday morning, voicing their disapproval of a compromise tax deal worked out by President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans.

The nonbinding voice vote in the closed caucus signaled the Democrats’ displeasure with what they saw as a capitulation of the president to Republicans at a time when Democrats still hold a majority in both houses of Congress. But as a vote Thursday afternoon in the Senate on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law governing service by gays in the military showed, holding a majority in the Senate means almost nothing. Using the threat of a filibuster, the 40 votes mustered by the Republicans trumped the 57 votes cast by Democrats,

And Senate Republicans signaled last week that they won’t pass anything substantive until all the Bush-era tax cuts are extended, including those at the highest income levels.

So while liberal firebrand Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, complained on national TV that President Obama should have fought harder for Democratic Party values, Obama would have lost the fight.

And that leaves House Democrats exactly where their Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said they are: with no choice but to vote for whatever tax plan comes out of the Senate or watch all the tax cuts expire on their watch.

Given that in January, the Republicans will control the House and have an even more comfortable margin to filibuster in the Senate, there are probably some Republicans hoping House Democrats block passage.

To do so, however, would be in no one’s best interests, because even a temporary expiration of the tax cuts would throw the economy into a tailspin — far beyond the obviously deflating effect it would have on holiday retail sales.

The president’s pitch

In a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon, Jason Furman, deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, and Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director, said President Obama has provided Congress with a framework that secures income tax relief, includes a temporary 2 percent cut in Social Security tax for all workers, provides incentives for companies to create jobs and extends benefits for millions of the long-term unemployed. At the same time, they conceded that there are parts of the deal — most obviously the extension of tax cuts at the highest income levels — that many Democrats (including Obama) don’t like.

The political reality is that Democrats are going to have to get over it. If House Democrats didn’t like what they couldn’t get done when they were in the majority, they’re going to hate it when they’re in the minority. As for Democrats in the Senate, they can either find a way to amend the rules for the next Congress in a way that limits the filibuster, or they can resign themselves to holding a majority in name only.

In the meantime, most economists who have looked at the Obama-Republican tax plan say it has the potential for spurring economic growth. And it doesn’t take an economist to recognize that allowing all the cuts to expire would risk a double-dip recession.

So the Senate Democrats are going to have to work with the Republican minority to put together a bill that very much resembles what was worked out at the White House. And Democrats in the House are going to have to grit their teeth and vote for it. The alternative ... well, there really isn’t a sane alternative.