There weren’t any complaints from Connecticut’s delegation about Congress’s fast exit from Washington this week, even if that meant ending with a whimper instead of a bang. Even those who had been looking forward to a big political brawl over renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy said they weren’t disappointed that that fight fizzled.
Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District, brushed off questions about whether the Democrats’ message has been muddled by the delayed tax-cut debate. “There’s some danger in having that vote 30 days before an election,” when everyone is in campaign overdrive, said Murphy, who supported nixing the upper-end tax cuts.
On the other side of the issue, Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, said he would have preferred to have the vote before Nov. 2, because a delay adds to the current economic uncertainly. He favored extending all the Bush tax cuts.
But like Murphy, Himes said he wasn’t worried that Congress’s punt on tax cuts would keep a hot issue alive during an already-fraught election season. “I haven’t thought about the politics of this,” he asserted.