Senate Dem. Patty Murray: Tax the rich or we’ll allow the country to fall off the fiscal cliff

This isn’t the first time Senate Democrat Patty Murray, co-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, has threatened this. And it’s so absurd a message that it shouldn’t be that hard for Republicans in the House to counter it because no one wants to see the country head into another recession. Of course it’s Boehner we’re talking about here so I’ll not get my hopes up. But if the House GOP is smart they will target this message and hammer home the idea that Democrats are willing to put the country at economic risk over an ideological need to stick it to the rich. This debate over fairness isn’t over, in fact it should be the mindset of Republicans that it’s only just begun.

NY POST – Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) — the co-chair of last year’s Senate Budget Committee, who is poised to head the panel again this year — said her party will allow automatic spending cuts and $700 billion in tax increases to kick in at the end of the year if the GOP doesn’t budge on tax hikes on those whose earnings top $250,000.

That situation, which has been likened to the United States falling off of a fiscal cliff, has prompted fears of another deep recession.

But Murray insisted the hard-line position was necessary.

“We can’t accept an unfair deal that piles all of this on the middle class and tells them they have to support it,” Murray said on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have to make sure that the wealthiest of Americans pay their fair share.”

If Republicans, many of whom were elected after campaigning against tax hikes, won’t agree, Democrats shouldn’t blink, she said.

“We’ll start over next year and whatever we do will be a tax cut for whatever package we put together. That may be the way to get past this,” said Murray.

“No one wants to go off the fiscal cliff, but a fair deal is absolutely critical here.”

Sen. Charles Schumer also said Democrats can’t cave in.

“[President Obama] campaigned on it clearly,” the veteran New York Democrat said on “Meet the Press.” “He didn’t back off it.”

Schumer is right that Obama campaigned on it. However House Republicans didn’t and they were re-elected en-masse to control the legislature. Republicans should not back down.