Let Obama be Obama
Lloyd Bentsen: Mike! Now that it’s all over, you can tell me. You were gonna raise taxes, weren’t you?
Michael Dukakis: Well, you bet I was! Through the roof! But now.. I won’t get the chance.
– From Saturday Night Live’s legendary “Dukakis After Dark” sketch, November 5th, 1988.
As several others have already noted, Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Dukakis in ’88, is having newfound second thoughts about his successor’s plan to soak the rich everyone:
Within days of winning the election, President Obama announced that his victory gave him a mandate to raise taxes on the “rich.”
Come again? This was a two-and-a-half-point election. It reflected a painfully divided electorate. The only mandate I saw was to unite a divided country.
Silly Susan. She of all people should know that the MSM grants every Democrat president a mandate to do whatever harebrained schemes he’s dreamed upon winning — even when he doesn’t receive an absolute majority of the vote.
Which is but one reason why Moe Lane of Red State writes,”While I think that it’s adorable that Susan Estrich thinks that Barack Obama cares about why anybody did or did not vote for him, it’s also pretty much irrelevant:”
What’s got her guts in an uproar is apparently rumors that the President wants to cap charitable deductions and lower the mortgage interest deduction… coupled with the sudden and unwelcome realization that Republicans are maybe going to smile nastily and let Obama do just that…
What’s that? Why is that a possibility? Oh, well, the reason why is because a hard cap on charitable deductions will bite deep into the willingness of rich liberals to fund nonprofits, including ones that are frankly front groups for Leftist advocacy organizations; and lowering the mortgage interest deduction will have the same effect on Blue State residents as would, say, a sledgehammer between the eyes would to a cow. Shared sacrifice, baby.
Which brings us to Victor Davis Hanson’s recent column at NRO, and this modest proposal: “Why doesn’t the Republican-controlled House of Representatives give both voters and President Obama what they wished for?”
The current battle over the budget hinges on whether to return to the Clinton-era income-tax rates, at least for those who make more than $250,000 a year. Allowing federal income rates to climb to near 40 percent on that cohort would bring in only about $80 billion in revenue a year — a drop in the bucket when set against the $1.3 trillion annual deficit that grew almost entirely from out-of-control spending since 2009.
Instead, why not agree to hike federal-income-tax rates only on the true “millionaires and billionaires,” “fat cats,” and “corporate jet owners” whom Obama has so constantly demonized? In other words, skip over the tire-store owner or dentist, and tax those, for example, who make $1 million or more in annual income. Eight out of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States voted for Obama. Corporate lawyers and the affluent in Hollywood and on Wall Street should all not mind “paying their fair share.”
Upping federal tax rates to well over 40 percent on incomes of more than $1 million a year would also offer a compromise: shielding most of the small businesspeople Republicans wish to protect while allowing Obama to tax the 1-percenters whom he believes have so far escaped paying what they owe, and then putting responsibility on the president to keep his part of the bargain in making needed cuts in spending.
Likewise, instead of hiking death taxes on small businesspeople, why not close loopholes for billion-dollar estates by taxing their gargantuan bequests to pet foundations that avoid estate taxes? Why should a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates act as if he built his own business and can solely determine how his fat-cat fortune is spent for the next century — meanwhile robbing the government of billions of dollars in lost estate taxes along with any federal say in how such fortunes are put to public use?
Oh, and repeal the Hollywood tax cuts of course — and for the sake of Gaia, draft legislation to ban whatever the most popular form of lighting is used to illuminate film and TV sets.
During the NR cruise, Jonah Goldberg quoted Ed Koch’s infamous crack upon losing reelection — during the same era that Estrich’s feckless boss lost his own bid for higher office. When asked if he would ever run again as mayor of New York, Koch replied, “No. The people have spoken — and now they must be punished.”
Good and hard, as Mencken said 75 years ago.
The people have gotten what they wanted. Now they will get what they deserve.
I just wish they wouldn’t drag me down with them.
I’m on board with this. I have no debt, my house is paid off, I don’t need to make a lot of money to support my lifestyle. Raise those taxes thru the roof – I’ll just make less and spend less. Let the games begin.
I am a Tea Party person. Having said that, I agree – give the Dems what they want on taxes, but make sure the public knows that the Republicans disagree, and that the Dems OWN the consequences. Hammer that home, time after time after time. Shove it down the Dems throats. Hard.
– passed, California Dems said the voters must be punished.
Obama won with 15% real unemployment, gas prices sky high, $6 trillion dollars in new debt, poverty & food stamps at an all time high, crime, murder, drug addiction, and mayhem on the rise, citys in ruin and going bankrupt ….etc etc etc.
Let us fully implement all of the liberal ideas for the next four years. Yes we will all suffer, but sometimes REAL excruciating pain is …all that people will understand. Let’s stop drilling, close down the coal fired power plants, build those wind farms, Fully implement obamacare, punitively raise taxes, increase regulations, cut off the Keystone pipeline, open the borders, legalize drugs, celebrate Homo marriage and abortion and infanticide, hell lets legalize bestiality, pedophilia, and polygamy, lets embrace the Muslim brotherhood and Shari law. These are all things that Democrats advocate.
If we as a country have chosen to go to hell, let’s do it in a hurry. Let’s have the full Monty. Let’s let the children have all of the candy they want. We’ve tinkered around with their ideas for the past few years and half the country still hasn’t learned. Lets give them what they want. We need to stop fighting them. Its time that they/we EXPERIENCE what its like to live in Detroit, Spain or Greece. I’m done fighting…… society has changed to much, and sadly us conservatives way of thinking hasn’t. Give them what they voted for.
Let Obama be the role model. Republicans can just vote present. He certainly couldn’t criticize them for cowardice.
Prepare for new taxes and increased spending on government handouts to special interest groups that support Democrat policy. In spite of conclusive evidence around the world that the welfare state is an economy-destroying dead end that threatens social cohesion, Americans still voted to continue the experiment. The game has changed along with the demographics. Hispanics, blacks, impoverished whites, single mothers and other needy identity groups are firmly in the dem’ camp and the socialists know how to keep them there. That’s why there isn’t one successful party in Western Europe that espouses conservative values, it doesn’t attract enough votes. The ‘one percent’ cannot fuel the welfare state even if they wanted to (they don’t) so that leaves only the middle class to ‘pay their fair share’. Make no mistake, the victims of socialism in America will be the wage earner and the small business owner. The wealthy understand this and that’s why so many support Obama.