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Charles Krauthammer thinks the GOP folks should grow a pair.
Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation?
House Speaker John Boehner already made the preemptive concession of agreeing to raise revenue. But the insistence on doing so by eliminating deductions without raising marginal rates is now the subject of fierce Republican infighting.
Where is the other part of President Obama’s vaunted “balanced approach”? Where are the spending cuts, both discretionary and entitlement: Medicare, Medicaid and now Obamacare (the health-care trio) and Social Security?
Social Security is the easiest to solve. So you get a sense of the Democrats’ inclination to reform entitlements when Dick Durbin, the Senate Democrats’ No. 2, says Social Security is off the table because it “does not add a penny to our deficit.”
This is absurd. In 2012, Social Security adds $165 billion to the deficit. Democrats pretend that Social Security is covered through 2033 by its trust fund. Except that the trust fund is a fiction, a mere “bookkeeping” device, as the Office of Management and Budget itself has written. The trust fund’s IOUs “do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Future benefits “will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures.” …
Jennifer Rubin wonders if barack will blow it a second time.
If you were under the impression President Obama learned something from his mishandling of the debt-ceiling negotiations in 2011, aptly described in Bob Woodward’s “The Price of Politics,” the last day or so should disabuse you of any optimism. Once again Obama can’t be troubled to put a counteroffer on the table. Once again he’s going out to the voters (when has he ever convinced them on a point of policy?). Once again he and the liberal special-interest groups have whipped themselves into a frenzy, certain that they can threaten to take us over the fiscal cliff. (Remember when the media howled, accusing the GOP of wanting the country to default in 2011?) It is a peculiar sort of regard for the middle class that delights in throwing them over the tax cliff, so long as the rich go, too.
Obama may have forgotten that he didn’t benefit in 2011 from the prolonged stalemate, nor did the House Republicans suffer. (As I am sure he noticed, the Republicans retained their majority.) Moreover, and this is the big difference, the Republicans have put revenue on the table, not in a backroom deal, but publicly and in defiance of their hardcore base. The president has done nothing but grandstand. Will voters notice?
He can’t very well bring out the old saw that he wants a balanced deal and Republicans do not. They put revenue on the table; where are his spending cuts? …
Rubin also points out WaPo editors are not happy with barry’s stunts.
President Obama got a wake-up call this morning from an unexpected source — the mainstream media. In multiple news and editorial pieces, the press took the president and the Democrats to task for intransigence and irresponsibility in the fiscal cliff negotiations.
The Post editorial board, which endorsed Obama in part because “the president understands the urgency of the problems as well as anyone in the country and is committed to solving them in a balanced way,” now warns: “Since his reelection, Mr. Obama has fueled a campaign-style effort to pressure Republicans to give ground on taxes. That’s fine, but it won’t be enough. At some point, he has to prepare the American people — and his own supporters most of all — for the ‘hard decisions’ required to put the country on a sound financial footing. That means spending cuts, it means entitlement reform, it means compromise, it means a balanced solution that will please neither House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) nor Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Only one person is in a position to make it happen.” …
And she also suggests maybe the president is just putting on a show for his base – Valerie and Michelle.
There was a great deal of huffing, puffing and even laughing (by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner) over the president’s ludicrous offer of “a $1.6 trillion tax increase, $50 billion in infrastructure spending in 2013 and new power to raise the federal debt limit, a provocative set of demands that Republicans said represented a step backward in efforts to avoid looming tax increases and spending cuts,” as the Wall Street Journal reported.
Well, take a deep breath. It’s “only” Nov. 30. Seriously, that means it is way too early to tell if President Obama is putting on a show for his base or if he’s really got his head in the clouds, ready to send the country over the fiscal cliff. …
Robert Samuelson asks who is bargaining in bad faith.
Put Social Security on the table — clearly and irrevocably. Protecting retiree benefits is the left’s political equivalent of the right’s “no new taxes” pledge. Congressional Republicans are abandoning their untenable position. Now it is time for President Obama and congressional Democrats to do the same. As long as they don’t, they aren’t bargaining in good faith, or in the national interest. …
Keith Hennessey also thinks the GOP should toughen up.
… House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have offered on behalf of Republicans a significant concession in an attempt to close the negotiating gap. Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell propose to accept higher taxes on the rich as long as government spending is cut significantly and incentives to work and invest are not weakened. That way, higher taxes and entitlement-spending cuts would reduce future deficits, not finance even bigger government as the president proposes.
Unfortunately, it appears that President Obama cannot take yes for an answer. Republican leaders have shown him a legislative path to lock in his top policy priority with a strong bipartisan vote. Their proposal splits their own caucus, yet still the president refuses because he thinks he can get even more.
Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole and a few lame-duck Republicans appear ready to capitulate. Cowed by a bully on the pulpit, afraid of being blamed for a stalemate, and convinced that they have no negotiating leverage, they bravely propose to embrace bigger government—and call it a win. These politicians prioritize their personal popularity over the policy consequences of major fiscal choices.
They also misread the negotiating environment. While the president has a strong hand, he is overplaying it. Republicans have some leverage. They need to use it effectively. …