Is There a Way to Pass the "Middle Class" Tax Cut Extensions?

I don't think it's wise to pass them unless they include organic pay-fors so that the total bill reduces the national debt after ten years.

But if you can find the pay-fors, here is what Reid, Pelosi, and Obama should do according to David Waldman:

State of the Nation: Just for fun, let's consider a way to get to an outcome where the tax cuts on the first $250,000 in earned income are extended, while the cuts on income above that level expire.... [I]t uses reconciliation to get the job done.... [R]econciliation instructions such as the ones adopted in the budget for fiscal year 2010 -- the ones that enabled the passage of the "fix" for the Affordable Care Act -- only expire at the first of either: 1) the adoption of a new budget resolution, which hasn't happened, or; 2) the end of the Congress that passed them, which also hasn't happened yet. But what about the fact that reconciliation instructions can only be used once a year? Well, that's not exactly true, either. A closer-to-correct statement would be that reconciliation instructions can only be used once per budget cycle. The last time they were used -- in early 2010 -- was in the FY2010 budget cycle. We're currently in FY2011, and the FY2011 budget cycle....

Pass the tax cut extensions for everyone, across the board. Send it to the president, and get it signed into law. Then come back with a reconciliation bill repealing the extension for the top brackets. Since current law at that point will score the repeal as a $700 billion savings over 10 years, you're good to go on the deficit reduction requirement. Move it under the FY2010 reconciliation instructions, and you're done....

And why involve reconciliation at all? That is, why not bring a bill extending the cuts just for the first $250,000 in income? One possible reason for worry is that the minority will have the right to offer a motion to recommit the bill that would add an amendment extending the cuts for all income. And the fear is that enough Democrats would bolt on that vote that when it's all said and done, you'd end up voting on an all-or-nothing package anyway....

[H]aving a legitimate path to passage in the Senate (thanks to reconciliation's protection from the filibuster), you might have considerably more sway in holding the House caucus together. A significant number of more conservative Democratic votes in the House will be uncomfortable with going out on a limb for a rollback if they think it'll just be killed in the Senate, anyway. Show them a path to passage, and minds might be changed.

Is it a risk? Yes. Does it require bold moves we're not used to seeing from the Democrats in Congress? Yes. Does that mean it's very unlikely to happen? Yes. Can it fall apart in the middle of the process and leave us stuck with across-the-board extensions? Yes. (But there's a way around that, too, if you're really adventurous.) But it does lay out a viable path to an end result of tax cut extensions for the middle class, without the added baggage of extensions for the rich.