Divining Signs

Complications
The income stagnation that has hit the middle class in the last decade is complicating the Democrats’ position in the fiscal talks, making it more difficult for them to advocate across-the-board tax increases if a deal falls through.

Many Democrats have derided the expiring tax cuts as irresponsible since President George W. Bush signed them a decade ago. Yet the party is united in pushing to make the vast majority of them permanent, even though President Obama could ensure their expiration at year’s end with a simple veto....

“It’s perfectly reasonable for the White House to begin collecting more revenue from folks who have done by far the best in pretax terms,” said Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a former economist for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “But ultimately we can’t raise the revenue we need only on the top 2 percent.” (NYT, 12/12/2012)

It is no longer a secret: Democrats want tax increases ON EVERYONE. In a perfect world, they would start with the rich and then, when it became obvious that they needed more, they would begin making the case that the middle class should kick in more "for the good of the country." Funny, we do not recall them running for office on that position...one month ago.


In A Name
It actually is the Bush-Obama rates. Two years ago, when the economy was, as now, sputtering along barely above stall speed, Obama — joined by 43 Senate and 139 House Democrats — extended the rates for two years because the economy was too weak to absorb large tax increases. (George Will, Washington Post, 12/12/2012)

Well, that's a good point. Why don't Obama and his allies in the media call them "the Obama tax cuts?"


Not Normal
Now comes Michigan’s new right-to-work law, passed Tuesday in a travesty of normal democratic deliberation. This effort to weaken unions would be problematic in any event. The moral case for unions is that they give bargaining strength to workers who would have far less capacity to improve their wages and benefits negotiating as individuals. Further gutting unions is the last thing we need to do at a time when the income gap is growing. (E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, 12/12/2012)

Two points. "Travesty of normal democratic deliberations?" Isn't that how Dionne's friends Reid and Pelosi passed Obamacare, or are we remembering that wrong? "Gutting unions?" Eliminating the forced collection of union dues, that's going to destroy unions? As others have said, if the unions are providing such enormous benefits for their members, said members will gladly pay their dues. Democrats and union bosses prefer the status quo: mandatory confiscation.