President Obama’s staff is signaling that tax increases on upper income earners are going to be a key component of the plan he lays out tomorrow to balance the federal budget — I suspect all that means is that he won’t support re-upping the Bush tax cuts yet again. And as you’d expect, as makes perfect sense to do, every Republican leadership office is now sending out press release after press release saying in various ways, “No Obama Tax Increase!”
For all conservatives and for a lot of independents and a decent amount of Democrats, that brings things into focus. Who wants their taxes raised? I don’t. Any conversation about taxes only makes sense when placed against a larger context.
Do you want to raise taxes to close the deficit or abolish Medicare?
For all I’ve said on this topic, this is why I think the White House is making a big mistake: lack of balance, lack of fairness, blah blah blah. That doesn’t focus attention or get people looking at the stakes. I don’t think you can really get very far if one side is cutting to the heart of the matter with a resonant message and the other side talking in generalities.
