Reacting to news that Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) has encouraged GOP colleagues to yield to President Obama on raising high income tax rates, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of Democratic leadership, and incoming Senate Budget Committee chair, will take the Senate floor Wednesday morning and push other Republicans to follow suit.  

"Democrats and Republicans both agree that the middle class should have their taxes cuts extended, so there is no reason why the House should continue holding that bill, and the middle class, hostage," Murray will say, in prepared remarks provided to TPM. "And one conservative Republican in the House agrees. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma told his colleagues and reporters yesterday that "the first thing I’d do is make sure we don’t raise taxes on 98 percent of the American people.”

He said that was “the right thing to do.” And that “where there is common ground…..we should seize that common ground."

Well M. President, I applaud Representative Cole for his common-sense but brave position.  And I am hopeful he can persuade his Republican colleagues to do the right thing for those families, small business owners, and communities across the country who have so much at stake, and who are looking to us to solve this problem.