GOP's Christmas Present to America

Yesterday, Washington Republicans voted to raise taxes on 160 million working Americans and cut off over 2 million Americans looking for work from unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, a new poll shows President Obama winning back middle class voters.

CORE MESSAGE

The GOP's present to American families: taking money out of their pockets.

Connect: The pressures of the holidays don't make it any easier for American families to make ends meet.

Define: But this holiday season, Washington Republicans have chosen to make things even harder for the middle class and those who are trying to get in it.

Illustrate: Starting New Year's Day, they're raising taxes on every single American who works for a living, and cutting off unemployment insurance from over 2 million families looking for work.

Contrast: While they take money out of the pockets of regular hardworking Americans, millionaires and Wall Street CEOs won't pay a penny more. They couldn't be more like the Grinch if they tried.

Tweet: GOP: All they really want for Christmas is more $$ for millionaires. Scrooge would be proud.

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

"A two month extension creates too much uncertainty for job creators."

• If they really wanted a full year's extension, they would've voted for it yesterday.
• If they were really concerned about uncertainty, they wouldn't have brought us to the brink of default or threatened to shut down our whole government four times.
• Here's what really threatens our businesses in this economy: taking money out of the pockets of over 160 million working Americans and laying off millions more. Working Americans are customers and our businesses need more of them, not less.

"We didn't really kill the extension -- we just want to keep working with the Senate on it."

• Republicans are hiding behind procedural gimmicks instead of owning up to what they did: raising taxes on 160 million working Americans.
• The Republican negotiators they appointed to "keep working on it" oppose the payroll tax cut anyway. That's not exactly a good faith effort.
• The bottom line is that we've found the one tax Republicans are determined to raise: the kind that only working Americans will pay.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Most Americans want Congress to extend the payroll tax cut -- including the majority of conservatives.
• A majority of Americans also support extending unemployment insurance.
• As a result of Republicans in Congress blocking the payroll tax cut, over 160 million Americans will see less money in their paychecks starting on January 1, costing a typical family almost $1,000 and costing our economy a million jobs.
• Republicans also blocked extending emergency unemployment insurance benefits, even though it's one of the most effective ways to help get our economy going again. As a result, the labor market could lose over half a million jobs.
• Even though unemployment benefits are around just $300 a week -- no one is getting rich off them -- it's an economic lifeline to struggling families that helps them to continue looking for work.
• Medicare payments to doctors will now be cut by nearly 30% next year as a result of the GOP's vote, undermining our seniors' access to health care.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working.  See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.