Obama's Tax Hike Plan Opens Combat Season

On Monday, President Obama presented a plan for tax hikes that have already been rejected by Congress when Democrats controlled it. He didn’t consult with either the Republican-controlled House or the Democrat-controlled Senate in drafting the plan, virtually guaranteeing that without champions for the plan in either house, it will not pass. The White House signaled today, that they know it won’t pass, and that’s their actual plan. He isn’t going to quit and hasn’t already quit, and he isn’t going to do a thing about unemployment in the private sector. It’s all about re-election.

So after his initial two years of dealing with an economic and financial crisis while pursuing an activist social agenda with Democrats in control of the House and Senate, and then a frustrating third year sharing power with Republicans, Mr. Obama now begins writing a third chapter for his final 15 months that is not the one he had in mind.

“It is fair to say we’ve entered a new phase,” said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director. But he disputed what he called the conventional wisdom behind the president’s shift.

“The popular narrative is that we sought compromise in a quixotic quest for independent votes. We sought out compromise because a failure to get funding of the government last spring and then an extension of the debt ceiling in August would have been very bad for the economy and for the country,” Mr. Pfeiffer added. “We were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us.”

The “popular narrative” Pfeiffer wants to get out there is actually wrong and intentionally misleading; the Obama White House has sought to advance a far left agenda at nearly every turn, and in the regulatory side of things, at every single turn. That’s why they put the health care effort ahead of jobs on the agenda. That’s why the EPA and NLRB have pushed hard against the energy sector and in favor of unions, with no regard for the jobs destroyed or endangered along the way. They’re collateral damage in the larger economic war Obama is fighting to transform the country.

Now, by keeping both houses of Congress out of the loop on his latest plan, Obama hopes to present himself as a Harry Truman figure running against a “do-nothing Congress.” That may work against the Democratic Senate, which in fact has done next to nothing, not even passing a federal budget for close to 900 days now. But the GOP House has passed more than one budget and deficit reduction plan, only to have its bills ignored by the Senate.

All the stuff in Obama’s plan, the “Buffett Rule,” the spending cut gimmicks, all of it — is about politics. Not jobs. Not the nation’s fiscal health. Not the scarcity of jobs or the depression in the housing market. It’s all about saving Obama’s job via the left’s favorite tactic — resort to class warfare, promise more government spending, demagogue from now until election day so he can rally his base.

Despite where he sits in the polls now and how often he seems to be losing interest in his job, President Obama is gearing up to drag a depressed and divided nation through one of the most bitter election seasons in decades.

(via Ace)