Yeah I know all that "now that you won are you ready to surrender?" crap is driving you crazy. Still, Obama could work a deal on taxes that would be win/win and maybe even lay the groundwork for future productive engagement with the insane wing of the Wacko party. Why should he do this when the looming fiscal cliff will give him a winning hand if he waits till after the election? That is exactly why! Here is the deal: They give Obama everything he wants during the lame duck session, and then they get to run against it in 2014.
The House passes tax reform that extends the current tax rates for everyone making less than 250,00, reforms AMT to keep it from hitting middle class taxpayers and reforms estate taxes. They deal with sequestration (read defense cuts). They get to toss in a couple sweeteners. If they can reach agreement with Obama, they can exchange marginal cuts for rich people for base broadening by eliminating tax preferences (carried interest for 200 Alex). They can cut out the death panels from Medicare so we no longer face the whole Logan's Run scenario. The Senate agrees, Obama signs the law and everyone begins the next four years feeling good. All that certainty helps businesses plan and hire and we get a better economy and better jobs.
BUT, BUT you sputter, isn't that the same position that Obama has been offering for months. nay years, that Republicans keep rejecting? Why do that now in lame duck and piss off all the Tea Party nutjobs, rather than after the election when they have been quietly tranquilized and won't notice? Indeed why compromise at all when intransigence has been so richly rewarded?
Consider the politics from the Republican side. If they wait, the Bush tax cuts will all expire. The optics of those tax cuts for the rich become much worse. On the other side of the cliff they are huge tax cuts for rich people. Before they are huge tax hikes for hard working job creators. If they make the deal now they can scrounge up enough votes from Congress critters who are already leaving plus a few in safe or Dem leaning seats and pass the bill while still leaving nearly all their caucus to attack it as a huge tax increase that none of them supported. They get to appear bipartisan, solve the fiscal cliff and still get a great talking point for 2014. If the economy doesn't take off they can blame Obama for raising taxes. If it does they can take credit for principled compromise.
If they wait and force a showdown...
Obama will know that Republicans can offer no reasonable partnership. His only alternative will be to play the political angles and make the Republican position untenable. He knows that he has overwhelming (2-1) support for increasing taxes on the rich, and will welcome the opportunity to make clear that even the danger of wrecking the military and crashing the economy can not make House Republicans behave responsibly. At that point it isn't even tax increases being proposed. The House Republicans would be refusing to even vote on tax cuts for almost every American, and avoid a fiscal, military and economic disaster unless they can have new (and unpaid for) cuts for the very wealthy. They will lose, and they will be publicly embarrassed. And in the end they will have to pass something the President and Senate will accept anyway, only it will be the new House with members that will be running in 2014 instead of the lame ducks they can blame and forget.
OK, now you are thinking "DAMN STRAIGHT, that is the sort of deal I can live with, the one where you crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women." If things are so good for Obama and bad for the Republicans if we just wait a few months, why cut a deal now? Take a deep breath and remember that we are Democrats and we put America first. If Obama can guide the economy to a path of sustained growth and build on healthcare reform, we will have the resources to address education and the environment and infrastructure and truly build the foundations of long term prosperity. We will own that. As Obama said after Sandy, we need to take care of our people, and the politics will take care of themselves.