That Sweet, Sweet Scent of Desperation

Steny Hoyer? He haz it:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Wednesday that the expiration built into the Bush tax cuts is a "Republican tax increase" for "working Americans" and the Democrats have "no intention" of allowing it to go into effect.

"We have no intention of allowing the Republican tax increase — that their policies would lead to — to go into effect for working Americans. Period," he said. "We're going to act and make sure that the Republican phase out and increase in taxes does not end as they provided for in the laws they passed."

This is the same Steny Hoyer who said in late June that the Bush cuts must eventually be rescinded so that Democrats could continue their free-spending ways:

Hoyer also suggested that tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush will eventually be rescinded. He said that it is necessary in order to help pay for the nation's mounting deficit and that permanent tax cuts would be too costly.

"As the House and Senate debate what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts in the coming weeks, we need to have a serious discussion about their implications for our fiscal outlook, including whether we can afford to permanently extend them before we have a real plan for long-term deficit reduction," Hoyer told a forum on deficit reduction.

Is over a month too long ago to consider Hoyer a hypocrite and opportunist? Perhaps his position has "evolved" over time.

If so, it was a short time.

Here is Hoyer a week ago today.

In a speech on the economy and jobs, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday reiterated his party's call to extend the Bush middle-class tax cuts and deemed Republicans' call to extend breaks for the wealthy a "mistake [that] would be putting ourselves even deeper into debt."

Hoyer is now and always was against the "Bush tax cuts," a phrase he's uttered like a curse since they were first enacted. Hoyer's ultimate plan is to raise taxes—or as he says, "raise revenue"— on the middle class, just as soon as it is politically feasible. But he can't raise those taxes if House Democrats get pummeled in the fall.

Steny's terrified, and changing his tune today for one reason, and one reason only.

He can see November from his house.