Something for nothing and your cliff for free
Why Republicans think they’re winning the ‘fiscal cliff’
By Ezra Klein, WashPost, Updated: December 31, 2012
Consider the ongoing “fiscal cliff” negotiations from the Republican Party’s perspective. Not the revanchist conservatives who never believed they’d need to compromise, but the realists who knew, when they lost the election, that compromise was inevitable.
To Republicans, these negotiations have always had two discrete parts. First, there was the fiscal cliff, with its promise of huge, automatic tax increases. They’ve always known that the fiscal cliff gives President Obama and the Democrats huge leverage. But after the fiscal cliff comes the debt ceiling, and they’ve always believed that that’s when they’ll get their leverage: Just as in 2011, they’ll force the White House to cut spending if it wants to avoid default.
The question for Republicans has always been how to get to the debt ceiling while giving up the minimum in tax increases. Many of them figured that they’d at least have to give on the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000.
When these negotiations began, the White House was unyielding on that point, with the president promising to veto anything that didn’t raise tax rates for income over $250,000. Asked by House Speaker John Boehner what he’d trade for $800 billion in revenue — about the cost of the high-income Bush tax cuts — Obama was firm. ”You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”
(More here.)
Consider the ongoing “fiscal cliff” negotiations from the Republican Party’s perspective. Not the revanchist conservatives who never believed they’d need to compromise, but the realists who knew, when they lost the election, that compromise was inevitable.
To Republicans, these negotiations have always had two discrete parts. First, there was the fiscal cliff, with its promise of huge, automatic tax increases. They’ve always known that the fiscal cliff gives President Obama and the Democrats huge leverage. But after the fiscal cliff comes the debt ceiling, and they’ve always believed that that’s when they’ll get their leverage: Just as in 2011, they’ll force the White House to cut spending if it wants to avoid default.
The question for Republicans has always been how to get to the debt ceiling while giving up the minimum in tax increases. Many of them figured that they’d at least have to give on the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000.
When these negotiations began, the White House was unyielding on that point, with the president promising to veto anything that didn’t raise tax rates for income over $250,000. Asked by House Speaker John Boehner what he’d trade for $800 billion in revenue — about the cost of the high-income Bush tax cuts — Obama was firm. ”You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”
(More here.)
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