Greg Sargent, WaPo: Dems should call GOP’s bluff on tax hikes

[highplainsdem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-dems-should-call-gops-bluff-on-tax-hikes/2012/11/09/9e8d824c-2a60-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_blog.html

If Republicans won’t agree to budge on high end taxes, Democrats can simply do nothing, let all the Bush tax cuts expire, and allow us all to go over the fiscal cliff. As many have pointed out, while there’s no minimizing the long term risk to the economy that poses, a deal early in 2013 would prevent any real damage. Senate Dems can simply come back in 2013 with their stronger, more liberal majority and vote on restoring just the middle class tax cuts. As David Dayen noted recently, they can vote on the Obama tax cuts for the middle class.

Republicans would then be challenged to vote against them. True, they have proven willing to do that before — the House GOP voted against a plan to extend just the middle class tax cuts this summer, insisting that taxes on the wealthy must be extended, too.

But this time, Republicans would have to vote against the Obama middle class tax cuts after Obama decisively won an election that was, at bottom, a straight up clash of philosophies over how best to restore long term middle class economic security. They’d have to do this at a time when the political world is consumed with talk about the serious “soul searching” Republicans must do about the way forward.

As Roll Call’s Steven Dennis puts it, if Republicans don’t budge, Obama can launch a public campaign asking why Republicans are threatening to tank the economy to protect the wealth of the one percent — painting Republicans as the unrepentant party of the rich. A post-election vote on middle class tax cuts would constitute a direct challenge to Republicans as to whether they will heed the will of the people as it was expressed on Tuesday.

I agree completely.

[SeloverB]

1. A Call To Action: End Supply Side NOW!

I’m a long time DU reader, but have never posted, until now.

As president Obama enters negotiations with republicons to handle our debt problem and prevent us from going off the fiscal cliff (or stepping off the curb because it isn’t as bad as it sounds) we need to apply pressure on republicons to move them off their supply side, no taxes on the wealthy strategy. Rachael Maddow has found a report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, published 9/14/12, that really should end the fantasy that supply side economic theory works. Simply put, the report makes clear that tax breaks for the wealthy are NOT associated with economic growth, but rather ARE associated with income disparity. The problem is that this report has been suppressed by Mitch McConnell, and is no longer available from the Congressional Research Service. It is available from Rachael’s MaddowBlog however, and is a part of her blog on 11/2/12. see: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/11/02/14889448-the-report-mitch-mcconnell-doesnt-want-you-to-see?lite

In support of President Obama, I will be sending copies of this report, by snail mail, to all Colorado republicon congress members, and I believe we all need to FLOOD the republicon House with copies of this report. You can send the entire 23 page report, or just the first two pages. They will get the idea. E-mails would also be helpful, but snail mail sends a more forceful message and supports the post office as well! Add your own message to these clowns while you are at it!

We have Obama for 4 more years. Now we need to help him and make him do what we’ve wanted all along! The best start we could have is to put a stake in the heart of supply side economics, which we’ve all suffered from for over 30 years!

[byeya]

2. That would be a welcome change! Supply-side, Austrian School, Friedmanism, call it

what you want, it's be tried for 30+ years and been a miserable failure.

Back to Keynes at least.

[Tutonic]

3. Agreed.

N/T