Obama Finds His Footing in the Tax Fight

[jefferson_dem]

Obama Finds His Footing in the Tax Fight
By Michael Scherer / Washington

For Presidents, even small things can end up making a huge difference. Take the phrase "We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage." Barack Obama scribbled that line onto a speech draft just a few days before traveling to Cleveland this month to speak out about Republican plans to oppose an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone but the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

Obama believed the hostage metaphor, used previously by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, had legs. In the days that followed the Cleveland speech, he and his staff made full use of the largest megaphone in politics, repeating the words until they had become a sort of media shorthand for the tax debate. "But aren't you, kind of, holding the tax cuts for the lower-income people, the people making less than $250,000, hostage so you can give those tax cuts to the upper brackets?" CBS's Bob Schieffer asked House minority leader John Boehner the next weekend. (See pictures of the tax protests last year.)

And then it all paid off. Instead of sticking to his party's script, Boehner, who is on track to become Speaker of the House next year, backed down. He broke from the leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell, and several other members of his own party leadership, to say he would support Obama's plan for a partial tax-cut extension just for middle-class households if given no other choice. A House GOP aide says Boehner's answer had a singular logic: "It eliminates the President's talking point that we are holding the middle class hostage."

Except it did no such thing. Almost immediately after Boehner's comments on CBS, several of his colleagues were forced to disagree publicly, highlighting the question of whether tax cuts for the rich should be tied to extending the middle-class reductions. On Wednesday, Boehner held an awkward press conference in which he seemed to be walking back on his comments on CBS. When asked if he would vote for a tax-cut extension that left out the wealthy, if that was his only choice, he said simply, "I want to extend all of the current tax rates." (See TIME's special report "After One Year, a Stimulus Report Card.")

This is the great power of the presidency, to frame the political debate and drive public opinion. For most of this summer, and much of the first 20 months of the Obama presidency, this skill has been a work in progress for Obama. More often than not, the President has found himself reacting to external events as he beat his head against Washington's legislative (and partisan) machinery, trying to enact large complex policies. Instead of being the master communicator many came to expect from the campaign, President Obama now often finds himself griping about the superficiality of news coverage, especially on cable television.

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http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2019833,00.html

[customerserviceguy]

1. Boner was just trying to play 'good cop'

McConnell is more than happy to play 'bad cop'. In any case, Boner's remarks were designed to deflate the "Party of No" line of attack that the President had against the Repukes.

We'll see how it all comes out. I went to a tax calculation site, and if the President's plan passes, it will save me $819 that I would not have if the cuts expire. But I'm willing to give that up to get more money to close the deficit from the rich if nothing passes.