Obama Frustrates Boehner on "Fiscal Cliff"

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Dec.11, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

           Accusing President Barack Obama for stalling on “fiscal cliff” negotiations, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) urged the president to identify specific areas he would cut spending.  Continuing the 2012 campaign lost by GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Boehner and his GOP friends seek dramatic cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and other health-related programs.  Obama campaigned on tax hikes on wage earners above $200,00 individually or couples $250,000.  So far, the White House has offered Boehner no concessions on self-employed businesses.  “Let’s be honest.  We are broke.  The plan we offered is consistent with the president’s call for a balanced approach,” said Boehner, not recalling the president’s plan to cut Medicare $300 billion.  Ryan ripped Vice President Joe Biden in their Oct. 11 debate on the White House plan to slash Medicare.

           When Boehner talks of “slow-walking” the process, he’s talking about Barack’s unwillingness to compromise on raising taxes on upper income earners.  Boehner and GOP tax crusader Grover Norquist insist that raising taxes on the rich will kill jobs.  Like Romney and Ryan, Norquist never mentions anything about recent Labor Department reports indicating the jobs growth remains steady.  If you listen to Boehner and Norquist you’d believe the economy’s still shedding 800,000 jobs a month like it did in the waning days of the Bush administration.  What Boehner and Norquist don’t get is that Obama won the Nov. 6 election by a landslide with the promise to raise taxes on the rich.  They also ignore national polling that shows the public backs the president’s plan to raise taxes on upper income brackets.  Boehner and his GOP friends are worried about breaching Norquist’s “No Tax Pledge.”

             Fearful that his “No Tax Pledge” has become obsolete, Norquist continues his non sequiturs about how tax cuts will kill jobs.  Norquist lives in the early ‘80s, when the late President Ronald Reagan led a tax cutting revolt, blaming the nation’s economic ills on high taxes.  “The irony of this is that the White House offer had very specific cuts, the GOP offer had almost none,” Tweeted White House Communication Direct Dan Pfeiffer.  Romney and Ryan had a field day blasting Barack’s proposed Medicare cuts, something in the president’s current “fiscal cliff” offer.  Today’s GOP politicians cut their teeth on Norquist’s “No Tax Pledge,” creating the only Republican identity other that fighting to ban abortions and gay marriage.  Still fighting for their no tax paradigm, Congressional leaders haven’t accepted the results of the Nov. 6 election, giving Obama the green light to raise taxes on the wealthy.

             Since the public sides with Obama, the GOP can no longer say they speak for the American people.  Polls show the public growing less patient with the GOP-controlled House as the “fiscal cliff” approaches.  Boehner wanted to blame Obama if the “fiscal cliff” as Bush tax cuts expire but the public blames Republicans.  Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asked Boehner to schedule a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for middle class taxpayers.  Republicans have been reluctant to give away their only bargaining chip on entitlement reform.  She predicted the vote would enjoy “overwhelming support” in the House.  Instead of holding “fiscal cliff” talks hostage to entitlement reform, the GOP should let Pelosi nail down votes to extend middle class tax cuts.  No one really knows, one way or another, whether or not higher middle class taxes would sink the economy.

             Boehner accuses Obama of dragging his feet on the “fiscal cliff” talks.  “The longer the White House slow-walks this process the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff,” said Boehner, turning reality on its head.  It’s the GOP that has ignored the Nov. 6 election, insisting they’re protecting U.S. taxpayers and the economy.  Boehner knows that the American public is solidly behind the president and blames Congress—with its 16% approval rating—for the foot dragging.  “The president seems to think that if all he talks about is taxes, and that’s all reporters write about, somehow the rest of us will magically forget that government spending is completely out of control and that he himself has been insisting on balance,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kt.).  McConnell also knows about the president’s $1 trillion cuts to government programs over the next 10 years.

             Boehner and the GOP house have softened the “stalemate” rhetoric and now hint that they’ve reluctantly accepted tax hikes on upper income brackets.  When conservative U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Ok.) signaled his willingness to accept tax hikes, it sent shockwaves through Norquist’s “No Tax Pledge” monopoly on the GOP House.  No one should expect diehards like Norquist to change their ways.  Faced with reelection in less than two years,” House Republicans don’t want voters lashing out at the 2014 polls if middle class voters lose their tax cuts.  As New Year’s approaches, look for a partial GOP news blackout signaling, if not capitulation, acceptance of the inescapable reality of higher taxes on the rich.  With polls showing the GOP will be blamed for going over the “fiscal cliff,” the House must face the music that Obama, not Grover Norquist, calls the shots in Washington.

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.