DCCC going on offensive over middle-class taxes

By Bernie Becker - 07/27/12 12:30 PM ET

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is planning to go on the offensive this weekend in advance of a House vote to extend all of the Bush-era tax rates for a year.

In a statement Friday, the DCCC said it would hold grassroots events in 15 congressional districts around the country on Saturday as it tries to cast Republicans as favoring the wealthy over the middle class.

“With 100 days until Election Day, Democrats are mobilizing voters nationwide to unmask House Republicans’ latest plan to protect millionaires over the middle class,” Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y), the DCCC chairman, said in a statement. “This election is about whose priorities are better for the middle class and we’ll take that message neighbor-to-neighbor and house-to-house.”

Republicans and Democrats both appear to believe they have the upper hand, politically and substantively, in the tax debate.

The House vote to extend all Bush-era rates for a year will come the week after the Senate passed a measure to extend rates only for household income up to $250,000 a year.

Democrats have called on the House to pass the Senate plan, noting that a proposal to pass all Bush-era rates already has been shot down in the Senate.

But Republicans have said that, given the stagnant economy, nobody’s tax rates should rise, and they accused Democrats of holding middle-class tax relief hostage while pushing to raise taxes on the highest earners.

The DCCC’s “Middle Class First Day” on Saturday will include both door-to-door campaigning and phone banking. In their release, the campaign committee also cited information from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center that said that the average person making over $1 million a year would get to keep an extra $130,000 under the GOP plan.

Those efforts will take place in Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.