Jeez, talk about a fucked up thing to do to a guy. The president just basically torpedoed whatever deal is being worked out between Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell by saying something along the lines of "I am so glad Republicans have agreed to vote for a tax increase with no spending cuts."
This, more than anything else, is going to make it difficult for House Republicans to support. That level of support will be directly proportional to how many votes the deal gets on the Senate floor.
That's the upside for Democrats. That once again, the House Republicans will save us from President Obama.
But if they don't and it passes?
The downside is that they may just decide that McConnell's accurate reading of the logic makes sense: that by removing the issue of taxes from the discussion, Republicans will be in a position to say "we already voted to increase taxes...now its your turn." That is even though most Republicans will vote against the bill and it will pass with Democratic votes. So, in the end...we will getting just over $700 billion in revenue when we asked for $1.6 trillion. And what do we get in return for this? A few morsels of nothing.
So this all works our for our side if Republicans conclude that protecting the rich is more important than cutting spending. If they do, we win because they'll kill the deal and suffer for it. Then we will get across the board Clinton rates and that's a good thing all around.
But the downside is that the enough of the GOP defects and votes with Democrats for this crap deal and then we get stuck with it while the GOP avoids any of the blame or costs.
Better to just go over the cliff and do this thing right, but you go to battle with the Democrats you have...etc. etc.