The President Puts Party Before Country

President Obama's $1.5 trillion dollar tax increase plan makes no sense. He signed an extension of the Bush tax cuts and two social security tax holidays, but now as election approaches, he wants to "tax the rich." His threat to veto entitlement reform makes the job of the "gang of twelve" deficit reduction committee much harder. Does he want it all too fail? Does he think that another crisis will get him re-elected? He's not likely to be running against a member of Congress next year, but a governor or former governor, so he won't have the luxury of demonizing the Congress for his own failures. Speaking of creating the conditions for failure, here's what Alexis Simendinger said in RCP today:

The president, in effect, decided to make the deficit-cutting job more challenging for Congress. The 12-member joint panel now negotiating to reach a deal under the rules set up by the debt-ceiling pact can ignore Obama’s deficit ideas and his rhetoric, but probably not his veto threats. The president set the overall target higher than the panel’s mandate (at a net total of $4 trillion); added $1.5 trillion in “comprehensive” tax reform to the mix, but with tax hikes in addition to tax cuts; and in a direct bow to his Democratic base, removed significant entitlement changes from a 10-year plan to curb the deficit.

The public understands that we have to start on entitlement reform now, because it is a serious long term threat, DailyKosters excepted. This is a loser for the President.

My most likely explanation is that Obama is just talking tough to play to his base. But when he sees his poll numbers tanking because this approach will create a crisis, he will just cave. Then his base will be even more demoralized. All Republicans need to do is stand firm and tackle some real reform and some more progress can be made in the long effort to dismantle federal excess.

Weekend Round Up

I feel a little more vindicated about my theory of 2007/2008 that Bill would sabotage Hillary's chances of becoming President. Ron Rosenbaum puts a spin on Bill's comments about Obama from the "Game Change" book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin that finally gives me a smoking gun. While purportedly trying to get Ted Kennedy's endorsement for Hillary or at least prevent said endorsement from going to Obama, Clinton is quoted as saying "A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee." From the Pajamas Media article:

What more could he have done than to alienate the ailing senator whose family identification with the civil rights cause was one of the chief glories of its decidedly mixed record. You know what: I have a heretical theory about this remark. It’s just too obvious to be a “slip.” Wouldn’t the whole episode make more sense if Bill was deliberately out to sabotage his wife’s run in ways she’d never know? And maybe for reasons he doesn’t really know.

That the Massachusetts Senate race is even close is already damaging the Democrat party. The unions and special interests are pouring in cash and help, but a wide variety of anecdotal evidence puts the momentum on Scott Brown's side. I was a little reluctant to get on this bandwagon because Brown had voted for Romneycare in Mass. But he has pledged to block Obamacare at the national level, so what's not to like. A few fun facts from the race:
1. Coakley has run one of the most abysmal campaigns, even appearing to insult Fenway Park.
2. Coakley was involved in one of the most infamous unjust and unfair prosecutions of the 20th century, that of the Amirault family, falsely convicted of child molestation.
3. Look at the trend in the polls, and compare the time line to the revelations of backroom deals on Obamacare.
4. Coakley managed to spell Massachussetes in an attack ad on Brown.


Oregon is going to the polls to tax the rich while their unemployment rate stands at 11.1%. Apparently liberals think with all this suffering will get voters motivated to support new taxes on the wealthy. This tax is being pushed by the public employees unions in another example of their attempt to become our masters rather than our servants. (If the linked Reason article doesn't make your blood boil, you are can't call yourself conservative or libertarian.) But I think the public is smart enough to know what a job killer the new taxes are; raising the top rates from 9% to 11% and business income tax from 6.6% to 7.9%.