Call Obama’s Bluff On Taxes

Republicans should agree to a tax hike.

I pen that line with some hesitancy. But the president has set a trap for himself:

Challenging lawmakers to make “substantial progress” by the end of this week or cancel plans for the July 4th holiday weekend, Obama upped pressure on Republicans by tying them to tax breaks for “millionaires and billionaires” while warning of default.

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“If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners … then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship,” he said.

The president and his party have deceived much of the public into falsely believing that the Bush tax cuts were nothing more than some corrupt giveaway to “corporate jet owners.” He is hoping that Republican devotion to holding the line on taxes will enable him to continue pushing this absurd line. Since Republicans won’t give in on tax cuts for billionaires, he’ll say, then why should I give in on anything?

Call his bluff.  Is that all the president is concerned about? Millionaires and billionaires? So be it. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell should jointly endorse a plan calling for a three-percent increase in the federal income tax rate on those whose gross annual earnings are $1,000,000 or more, and then demand that, since they gave into what Obama wanted, sweeping spending cuts also should be enacted.

Obama is using the idiotic millionaires-and-billionaires line because he believes that stirring up envy and resentment amongst the middle class is a more effective tool than debating the tax cuts on their merits. The GOP should take advantage of this and agree to tax hikes on those who genuinely can absorb the blow — both to protect the small business owners of the upper-middle-class from job-killing tax increases and to enact the types of spending cuts we need.