If you can’t beat ‘em, demonize ‘em:
The negotiations offer little evidence November’s election brought the president and House Republicans closer together. If anything, the talks poisoned an already distrustful relationship.
Mr. Boehner could soon face a decision whether to call for a vote on some sort of plan that could avert the cliff’s spending cuts and tax increases but might imperil his position if he had to rely on Democrats to pass it.
Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.
At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”
“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”
Can you feel the bipartisan love — the mutual respect and deep sense of responsibility necessary to solve this crisis? Â Yeah, me neither.
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HI_Don
Dec. 26, 2012 at 4:59pmI’m no editorial writer, but neither are most I’ve been reading apparently. Why has no one clearly communicated the facts that should inform Americans. 1) Taking more tax money from the rich only defines where the government gets more money, not who will end up paying for it. Every American will see inflation. All of that cost will be passed on to us, higher cost of food, energy, entertainment, housing, medical, everything. The increased cost the rich have are passed on to consumers in higher prices and fees. 2) Even if the government takes 100% of the income of every “rich” person (defined as >$250K or however you want to define it), we still can’t pay for what Washington is spending – even if you consider all the spending cuts Obama is willing to discuss. We have a spending CRISIS, not a revenue problem. No matter what we do with taxes and loopholes, we as a country will be insolvent – broke – falling off the fiscal cliff – the new Greece – unsustainable – in CRISIS unless we get our hired idiots in Washington to deal with reality and balance the budget. Not tinker with “proposed decreasing in proposed spending increases over the next ten years” – no – balance the budget. Where is the editorial on how increasing taxes on the wealthy will push this country into inflation – and combined with “quantitative easing” will collapse this economy. Then NOBODY gets welfare, medicare, social security. only the rich political class “rulers” will walk away with their bank
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