This is an excerpt from Listen to the Voters—and Save Yourselves, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. 

It's time for House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican leadership to stop holding America's middle class hostage and instead join Democrats in saying "No" to another tax cut for the rich.

That's what voters asked for, loud and clear.

People are tired of the rich getting gifts from Washington at the expense of everyone else—and they're also tired of brinkmanship. It was a bad idea to create a fiscal cliff, and it's an even worse idea for Republicans to threaten to drive off it and take the American middle class with them.

The cliff Boehner should be worrying about is the one over which he's pushing his party's approval rating. Gallup's most recent poll shows Republican job approval rating at 16 percent. President Obama's rating is closer to 60 percent.

Boehner doesn't understand that the Republican hard line against tax fairness and for cuts in earned benefits is not only irresponsible and wrong, it's also hugely unpopular.

Read the rest on The Huffington Post.