Republicans have a bad hand to play when it comes to the “fiscal cliff” coming up Jan. 1, when taxes will rise automatically on everyone and whopping defense cuts will be imposed automatically.
Did I say a bad hand? Make that a terrible hand. It’s like getting a 3, a 5, a 7, a 10 and a Jack in poker. Only in this game, you can’t trade in any cards — or fold.
The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire. A new piece of legislation must pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the president to change that.
Republicans, for good economic reasons, want to keep the tax cuts in their entirety. Democrats, for good political reasons, want to keep all of them but the ones for people who earn in excess of some large number — at the least, $250,000.
By keeping most tax rates at present levels, Obama and the Democrats will claim that they have championed tax cuts for the middle class.
That’s bizarre logic — keeping something the same is not a cut. But these days, if you say something often enough and have it repeated often enough by a credulous media, the reputation will stick.
The Republicans say they’ll agree to increased tax revenues through means other than raising rates. That means closing loopholes in the tax code. That should be fine for Obama, but it isn’t. He wants a rate increase for the wealthy. If he doesn’t get it, he says, he won’t sign.
What Republicans say the government needs is budgetary discipline when it comes to entitlements, specifically Medicare and Medicaid. Such discipline is necessary as a matter of policy; without it, the entire federal government will melt down in the next 15 years.
Obama knows this, too. But it’s not part of his proposal.
So here’s where things stand politically, 26 days from the fiscal cliff. The president says he wants “tax cuts” for the middle class funded by a rate increase for the wealthy. Republicans say they want benefit cuts, which will have an effect primarily on the middle and lower classes.
Obama’s claim is that he wants to give. The GOP is saying it wants to take.
No wonder the president is signaling that he’s willing to go “over the fiscal cliff.” The public is on his side on these rate increases, since for an overwhelming majority of Americans, taxes will go up on other people.
And the public dislikes benefit cuts. The only way such cuts will ever be secured to the degree the future of the country requires is through overwhelming bipartisan support. Not this month.
Now, Obama should be panicked about the “sequester” — that aspect of the “fiscal cliff” that requires a 10 percent across-the-board cut in defense spending if a deal isn’t struck.
He is, after all, the commander-in-chief. Hurtling the Pentagon into an unprecedented budgetary meltdown is horrifically irresponsible.
Obama doesn’t care. This is war — not against the Taliban, but war against the GOP. He has Republicans on the ropes, and that’s a victory he savors and desires — unlike Afghanistan, where he seems only to want to turn tail.
Polls say Americans would be twice as likely to blame Republicans as Democrats for the failure to reach a deal. Now more than ever, Republicans should know better than to pretend polls aren’t telling them something.
Here’s the thing: Congress doesn’t do well negotiating with the president in direct public view. He’s big. They’re small. He governs the nation; each member of the House is chosen to represent 1/435th of the country.
Factor in that only 32 percent of voters nationwide described themselves as Republican on Election Day, and you have the very real possibility that the poll numbers are only going to get worse for the GOP as the month of December progresses.
The truth is, every way you look at it, the GOP is trapped. Republican politicians will cave and give the president most of what he wants. The only real question is when. The answer is: Probably at the worst possible time, when they’ve done even more damage to the party’s “brand.”
Here’s some small comfort for Republican politicians trapped in this Hell: On Nov. 6, the American people chose this box.
We get the government we ask for.