Krauthammer On The GOP's Mad Negotiating Skillz

The main reason we appear to be in a weak negotiating position on the so-called "fiscal cliff" is that we have weak negotiators.

Why are Republicans playing the Democrats’ game that the “fiscal cliff” is all about taxation?

House Speaker John Boehner already made the preemptive concession of agreeing to raise revenue. But the insistence on doing so by eliminating deductions without raising marginal rates is now the subject of fierce Republican infighting.

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Obama is claiming an electoral mandate to raise taxes on the top 2 percent. Perhaps, but remember those incessant campaign ads promising a return to the economic nirvana of the Clinton years? Well, George W. Bush cut rates across the board, not just for the top 2 percent. Going back to the Clinton rates means middle-class tax hikes that yield four times the revenue that you get from just the rich.

So give Obama the full Clinton. Let him live with that. And with what also lies on the other side of the cliff: 28 million Americans newly subject to the ruinous alternative minimum tax.

This is the reason Obama and TurboTax Timmy made that ballsy proposal yesterday. They fully expect Boehner and McConnell to cave, and why wouldn't they?

This should be Team GOP's counter-offer to that steaming pile:

• Current tax rates become permanent
• AMT repealed
• Spending permanently capped at 2007 levels plus inflation and population growth, with cuts to get down to the cap applied across the board (good for about $600 billion in deficit reduction by my quick math)
• Obamacare delayed until the debt to GDP ratio is below 80% and U-6 unemployment is below 10%

And if not ...

posted by Andy at 11:04 AM

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