Sen. Blumenthal: Payroll-tax cut became ‘hostage’ of ideological Tea Party extremists

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) accused Tea Party “extremists” of holding the payroll-tax cut “hostage” during the bitter fight to renew the cuts prior to the beginning of the holiday break.

The two-month payroll-tax-cut extension became a “hostage to a small minority of Tea Party members that strike me as basically ideological extremists who don’t want to go along with compromise,” Blumenthal said in an interview published Wednesday in the Vernon, Conn., Reminder News.

The grueling fight, resolved the day before Christmas, threatened to shut down the government for the fourth time in 2011 and also came close to derailing unemployment benefits, which Blumenthal argued are critical for repairing the broken economy. 

“Every dollar paid on jobless benefits is spent,” Blumenthal said in the interview. “I think this issue goes to the core of our economic recovery and economic security.” 

The resolution provides that two-month extension of the tax cut, setting up another contentious fight over the tax cuts in February.