It’s safe to say President Obama’s deficit reduction plan and jobs bill will not make it to the floor of either house of Congress in their current forms. But regardless of whether a jobs bill or a deficit reduction plan makes it through Congress, the threat of higher taxation may have already sealed the president’s fate where the economy is concerned.
Earlier this month, the president called for $447 billion in federal spending on infrastructure, including roads, bridges and schools. And on Monday, the president unveiled his 10-year, $3 trillion deficit reduction strategy, including $1.5 trillion in new taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Under what is termed the “Buffett Rule,” coined after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, those making over $1 million annually would pay an unspecified higher percentage of their income in tax. In addition, the Bush-era tax cuts would not be renewed, and individuals and families with annual incomes of $200,000 and $250,000, respectively, would be limited on the number of tax deductions for which they are eligible, amounting to an additional tax hike. Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, responded immediately to the taxation measure with cries of “class warfare.”
Whether viewed in the light of his reelection campaign or as a peculiarly vociferous effort to confront the languishing economic crisis, the President’s rhetoric of late has been stridently anti-big business and anti-wealthy. It’s a populist bent he’s adopted before, but never as intently.
The strategy may indeed play well politically for the president. Liberal commentators have been particularly supportive of Mr. Obama’s plan to increase taxes on the rich. Former Clinton adviser and CNN political contributor Paul Begala tweeted: “One of Begala’s Laws of Politics: if Republicans accuse you of ‘class warfare,’ you’re winning.”
But where the president’s new federal stimulus and deficit reduction plans fall short is in their long-term viability. The $447 billion spending measure is geared toward short-term spending, but months will be required to identify spending targets and ramp up projects before jobs can be created. (You may recall the president chuckled in admitting that following the previous stimulus, so-called “shovel-ready” jobs weren’t exactly as billed.)
And what about companies unable to take advantage of stimulus dollars to hire new workers? They’re hit doubly hard. If the president’s “trickle-up” plan fails to stimulate demand and jump-start the economy, small business owners remain in a stagnant economic climate but face additional taxes under the president’s deficit reduction plan.
Clearly the 2012 election will hinge on which party or candidate has the best plan to revive a withering economy. And if small business owners can stomach it, they may intentionally not hire workers in order to keep unemployment high and economic conditions depressed so that the president is seen to have failed in his efforts to move the economic needle. It’s a risky move, but one that may be in business owners’ quivers if they’re after political change that will look more favorably on businesses.
Washington Post, was a disclaimer really necessary?
Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post offers today a perfectly reasonable fact check of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s assertion that Republicans have not done anything “constructive” to further President Obama’s legislative agenda and move the economy in a positive direction. Kessler lays out several recent examples of measures passed with GOP support, directly contrary to the Majority Leader’s statement. It’s clear Kessler did his homework.
But at the bottom, Kessler includes this disclaimer:
Now The Washington Post is rarely, if ever, accused of being a shill for the Republican Party, as are Fox News and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. The Post’s editorial board is arguably as liberal in its ideology as The New York Times — if not more so.
But I question the value of explicitly stating that the Post isn’t “picking on Democrats,” as though the newspaper has been accused of unfairly criticizing the party or its members on a regular basis and is somehow forced to take up a defensive posture; that somehow its objectivity would come into question for this, by all accounts, innocuous challenge.
The message here is one of reluctant concession — that unfortunately a Democratic leader pushed his rhetoric too far into the realm of fiction to allow it to pass unchallenged.
But rest assured, dear readers. The Post promises to go back on a Republican offensive as soon as possible.