If there’s anything Washington reporters can appreciate as the President Obama meander has gotten worse over the past four years, it’s a short, sweet, to-the-point presser.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) a short time ago:
Good afternoon, everyone.
Republicans continue to work toward avoiding the fiscal cliff. The president’s offer of $1.3 trillion in revenues and $850 billion in spending reductions fails to meet the test that president promised the people: a balanced approach.
And I hope the president will get serious soon about providing and working with us on a balanced approach.
Tomorrow, the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American, 99.8 percent of the American people. Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history.
And then he walked away.
In an attempt to stem criticism from some conservatives of Plan B, Boehner’s office released a does and doesn’t list…
- Does not raise taxes. It is a net tax cut that prevents a $4.6 trillion tax hike on January 1;
- Permanently extends income tax rate cuts for Americans making less than $1 million, which protects 99.81 percent of all taxpayers;
- Permanently extends the current estate and gift tax ($5 million at 35 percent and indexed for inflation);
- Permanently extends section 179 expensing for small businesses ($250,000 and indexed for inflation);
- Permanently stops the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from hitting more middle class families;
- Permanently extends parity for capital gains and dividend taxes, preventing dividend taxes from being taxed at the highest rates; and
- Does not include anything on the debt limit or other non-tax policy items. Remember, Speaker Boehner’s rule on the debt limit still applies: spending cuts must exceed any debt limit increase.
It has Grover Norquist’s blessing. But Plan B is taking a beating from conservatives and liberals alike — for different reasons, of course.
“The ‘Plan B’ is a very flawed proposal,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a Hill news conference today. “It gives huge tax breaks to the wealthy, an average of $50,000 per millionaire.”
I am in full support of Mr. Boehner on this, and I do consider myself as someone always ready to go die on a hill if necessary.
This bill will do absolutely nothing to restore reason to our spending. For that matter, nor will the President getting what he wants. The revenues raised are a drop in the bucket. But it is a sign of willingness to bend, even though we feel we are in the right. This is important, for when the disaster comes, if it comes, it will be important to show that we were the side that acted honorably, vice dishonorably.
I don’t know why the President or Chuck Schumer have a personal animus against those who have shown themselves to objectively more talented and successful, though it is a common human emotion. Envy is a historical deadly sin, after all. But the fact is that a man willing to wreck the lives of millions simply because he wants to hurt a group he does not like is a man with hate in his heart, and one upon whom one applies the word “rational” but carefully. Like I said, I do not know what drives Barack Obama, but in either his inability to understand entitlements must be reformed, for the money simply is not there, or in his Ahab-like quest to spear those who existence he cannot stand, or at least wreck many lives just to pin-prick them, I do have concerns that we are in the grip of a very refined, polished, cool, collected, and educated—but nevertheless egomaniacal–madman.
A good deal is on the table. I suggest the President take it. In the Anglo-American tradition, of which I understand his father could have taught him but little, at least two wars have been started over, among other things, who gets to set tax policy–the Crown (or the legislature favored by the Crown), or the legislature that is actually closest to the people.
And to be clear, what is wanted are both cuts and increased revenues so as to start–and it would be a mere start–restoring balance to a dangerously overladen ship. But we cannot get the cuts, since Barack Obama simply will not allow them to the kevel needed. Thus, we nevertheless offer concessions, while the President offers nothing, and rejects a proposal considered reasonable by his own people not that long ago. I ask, is this the proper course of action of a *sane* man hoping to keep his foundering ship off the closing rocks? To not even turn the wheel away from the rocky shore unless he gets absolute obeisance from passengers and crew? When that obesiance will actually solve nothing, but is instead exactly what it is–the establishment of a hierarchy of who is to be considered the sainted, and who is not?
Hardly. It is the act of a man consumed by power, and desiring of power absolute. The actions of an idealogue. The actions of a religious madman, convinced of his own messianic vision. Such is our crisis in this present day and age.
As a final word–On this issue of whether or not Barack Obama acted honorably and with statesmanship in his heart during his tenure in office, or was merely trying to wipe out of existence, to the extent that he could, the part of America he did not like, independent of any wrong actually done by that part (and precious little seems to have been done, unless not jumping to every demand the twenty-two year old college student the man still seems to be is what a “wrong” constitutes) we might have to let history be the judge, and we hope history notes the question was asked.