All-Drama Obama not only isn't budging on tax hikes, he's spinning a narrative that is entirely false.
All-Drama Obama
After yet another week of political theater, only one thing is clear. Barack Obama would rather have America default on its financial obligations than forgo the massive tax hikes he demands.
On Friday, there were only eleven days between America and the date on which it will begin to default, August 2.
The debt ceiling talks between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) blew up on Friday when Boehner -- frustrated with Obama's games -- announced he would quit the talks and work out a deal with congressional leaders, rendering Obama irrelevant. Obama deserves to be pushed out of the picture, but Boehner's strategy relied on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to be fiscally responsible and politically sensible. Unsurprisingly, as of Sunday evening, Reid and Pelosi -- having met with Obama -- were off drafting their own bill, leaving Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell empty-handed.
Meanwhile, two more days were lost.
If the stakes weren't so high for our economy, the past three months of debt ceiling crisis talks could be written off as just another White House-engineered psychodrama. All-Drama Obama wants to continue raising voters' anxiety regardless of the effects on our economy simply to pressure Boehner and McConnell to give in to his demands.
Obama has only two goals: one is to increase the debt ceiling to a sufficient level that the issue won't pop up again to damage him in the 2012 campaign, and the second is to increase taxes without making significant cuts in federal spending. He apparently regards the very real debt ceiling crisis as nothing more than a political tool.
But Obama's goals appeared to have been effectively blocked on Friday when Boehner walked out of the White House talks. Obama -- at the point of an agreement -- suddenly imposed a new demand for "revenue enhancements" -- i.e., tax hikes -- far in excess of those Boehner was prepared to accept. Boehner behaved admirably by walking out, and in what he said were his reasons for doing so.
At 3:55 pm on Friday, Boehner told the press that Congress was going to develop its own plan because the White House talks had failed.
He said:
The discussions we've had with the White House have broken down for two reasons. First, they insisted on raising taxes. We had an agreement on a revenue number. A revenue number that we thought we could reach based on a flatter tax code with lower rates and a broader base that would produce more economic growth, more employees and more taxpayers, and a tax system that was more efficient in collecting the taxes that were due the federal government. And let me just say that the White House moved the goalpost. There was an agreement, some additional revenues, until yesterday when the president demanded $400 billion more which was going to be nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.
About three and a half hours later, an obviously rattled Obama went in front of the cameras to blame Boehner for the talks' failure andreiterate his demand for tax hikes. Diving into in class warfare rhetoric, Obama said:
Now, if you do not have any revenues, as the most recent Republican plan that's been put forward both in the House and the Senate proposed, if you have no revenues at all, what that means is more of a burden on seniors, more drastic cuts to education, more drastic cuts to research, a bigger burden on services that are going to middle-class families all across the country. And it essentially asks nothing of corporate jet owners, it asks nothing of oil and gas companies, it asks nothing from folks like me who've done extremely well and can afford to do a little bit more.
And then the drama:
This act of the drama was played against a backdrop of the series of Obama-declared deadlines that he uses to create tension. But Obama is no Hitchcock: his ticking clocks and burning fuses have become a bore.We have now run out of time. I told Speaker Boehner, I've told Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, I've told Harry Reid, and I've told Mitch McConnell I want them here at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. We have run out of time. And they are going to have to explain to me how it is that we are going to avoid default. And they can come up with any plans that they want and bring them up here and we will work on them. The only bottom line that I have is that we have to extend this debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013.
READ MORE: http://spectator.org/archives/2011/07/25/all-drama-obama#
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