The question isn’t about fairness, it’s about math
Confident Obama sees path to fiscal cliff win
By: Ben White, Politico.com
November 28, 2012 02:01 PM EST
Business executives and others who’ve met with President Barack Obama in recent days describe a president who’s supremely confident that he’ll come out on top of a fiscal cliff deal — with Republicans bending to his will on tax increases for the wealthy and Democrats sucking up deep spending cuts.
These people say Obama is dismissive of the idea that deduction limitations and loophole closings alone are a sufficient or even desirable way to achieve the $1 trillion or more in new revenue he is seeking. And they say the president believes his relentless public campaign — which continued Wednesday and hits the road on Friday — along with widespread support in polls for letting the top George W. Bush-era rate cuts expire will overwhelm any remaining GOP resistance.
“For him the question on top rates isn’t just about fairness, it’s about math,” said one top financial services executive, who like others interviewed for this story declined to be identified by name in order to speak candidly about private meetings. “You might be able to get a similar amount of revenue but all of the deduction closings would create their own problems. Closing the mortgage deduction could hurt the housing market, for example. His commitment to rate increases is absolutely unshakable and he believes the politics are firmly on his side.”
The executive and others briefed on White House fiscal cliff strategy say if the GOP line against marginal rate increases somehow holds between now and the end of the year, when the fiscal cliff tax hikes and spending cuts begin to kick in, the president is confident he can use a pair of bully pulpit bazookas early next year — the second inaugural address and the State of the Union speech — to blast Republicans as holding the American economy hostage to a narrow and outdated ideology.
(More here.)
By: Ben White, Politico.com
November 28, 2012 02:01 PM EST
Business executives and others who’ve met with President Barack Obama in recent days describe a president who’s supremely confident that he’ll come out on top of a fiscal cliff deal — with Republicans bending to his will on tax increases for the wealthy and Democrats sucking up deep spending cuts.
These people say Obama is dismissive of the idea that deduction limitations and loophole closings alone are a sufficient or even desirable way to achieve the $1 trillion or more in new revenue he is seeking. And they say the president believes his relentless public campaign — which continued Wednesday and hits the road on Friday — along with widespread support in polls for letting the top George W. Bush-era rate cuts expire will overwhelm any remaining GOP resistance.
“For him the question on top rates isn’t just about fairness, it’s about math,” said one top financial services executive, who like others interviewed for this story declined to be identified by name in order to speak candidly about private meetings. “You might be able to get a similar amount of revenue but all of the deduction closings would create their own problems. Closing the mortgage deduction could hurt the housing market, for example. His commitment to rate increases is absolutely unshakable and he believes the politics are firmly on his side.”
The executive and others briefed on White House fiscal cliff strategy say if the GOP line against marginal rate increases somehow holds between now and the end of the year, when the fiscal cliff tax hikes and spending cuts begin to kick in, the president is confident he can use a pair of bully pulpit bazookas early next year — the second inaugural address and the State of the Union speech — to blast Republicans as holding the American economy hostage to a narrow and outdated ideology.
(More here.)
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