The left is in a Fury! The demon Obama has revealed himself to be.. .The maladopted clone of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich joined at the hip!
What shall we do when confronted with this total betrayal
Well one thing is to stop and think, which I will now attempt to do
(1) Is it better policy to extend the middle class tax cuts and allow the upper income ones to expire?
(2) Is it possible to pass a law that does (1)?
(3) If it is not possible to pass (1), is it better to let the all tax cuts expire (as well as unemployment benefits expire) so that the tax cuts for the rich expire?
(3) seems to be the rub. I was very much disapointed that the congress did not pursue the middle class tax extension BEFORE the election. But the fact that they did not do so was not Obama's fault--it was the blue dogs.
However, given that we are in this situation, given the options that are available (all taxes raised or no no taxes raised) Its obvious if we don't want to cause suffering, that its better to keep the status quo.
One could argue that denying any extension of tax increases will give us an issue--but I think Republicans are pretty good at using the tax cut hype to their advantage. Also, the next election is two years away, a lot of people who are not rich are going to be a lot poorer--Is it reasonable to sacrifice real people for the sake of a hypothetical campaign issue two years hence?
But what does Obama do? He agrees to the status quo knowing he does not have the votes, but also gets the Repubs to give him (and us) much more: 2% cut in payroll taxes (a regressive tax if there ever was one), unemployment benefits extension. Continued child tax credit. In addition to these polices actually helping individuals, anyone with an ounce of Keyensianism in them will recognize that broad based tax cuts will help the recover
Okay--come at me--where is the flaw in the reasoning?