One of the most disingenuous claims of this Administration is how they don’t pay attention to polls and politics when considering policy. It’s an administration of principles that does the right thing. One of those signature issues is, of course, tax cuts. The principled thing to do, according to the administration, is to pass tax cuts whenever there is an opportunity to.

Well, not exactly. It seems that House and Senate Republicans wanted to pass a tax cut right before the Democratic National Convention. They hoped to ram it through and get enough Democratic votes (the cut was actually focused at the “middle class”) to show their commitment to the regular folks around the country.

Not so fast, says the White House. The Times and the Washington Post report today that the White House scuttled the plan in part because it would’ve diluted their central campaign theme because Dems would’ve been on the same side.

See, the part that the White House didn’t like is that the negotiated proposal would’ve extended the very same tax cuts that Kerry has said he would like to keep. The Bush White House wants the full extension to the end of the current cuts (2009/2010) or nothing at all. Moderate Republicans, concerned about the budget deficit, wanted some tax increase or spending limitation (Kerry has proposed moving back toward the old bracket for folks making $200K or more).

Watch for a new proposal in September or October, right before the election, that looks much like this proposal but asks for 5 years instead of 2. The White House and some Republicans are hoping that Congress will be less likely to debate the issue as these particular benefits will expire at the end of the year.

Sounds like politics to me.