Wall Street Journal edit board to anti-tax brigade: Time to face reality

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/wall-street-journal-edit-board-to-anti-tax-brigade-time-to-face-reality/2012/11/28/0238ba50-3984-11e2-b01f-5f55b193f58f_blog.html

Wall Street Journal edit board to anti-tax brigade: Time to face reality
By Greg Sargent


You know something is amiss when the Wall Street Journal editorial board bluntly warns Republicans that it’s time to accept the new political reality on tax hikes. If you read down to the bottom of the Journal’s big editorial on taxes, you’ll discover this is what it has now done.

snip//

In another sense, though, it is a fairly important concession about the reality of public opinion, given where it’s coming from. It is a break from what some Republicans have been saying — specifically, that the election gave them a mandate to hold the line against any tax increases. Both Norquist and Mitch McConnell have made variations of that claim, as have others. The Journal is allowing that the election has changed the politics of the tax debate — and it is even implicitly acknowledging that Obama has the leverage here, because taxes will go up if Democrats do nothing.

Now contrast this with the White House’s behavior.

I’m told that White House economic adviser Gene Sperling privately met with many House Democrats today and told them that Obama and his advisers believe they’re winning the tax fight. He told them that the White House sees raising revenues only by capping deductions as unacceptable, because it would hit the middle class. “He said that until we see Republicans come to the table when it comes to rates specifically, there isn’t going to be any more discussions on the other issues,” a Democratic aide present tells me.

Now, it’s true that that is roughly the White House’s public position, too. But it’s good to see White House advisers working behind the scenes to reassure Dems that they don’t intend to buckle. And the Journal editorial will only add to the sense among Dems that the politics of this fight are shifting their way.

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1. the *political* reality: "we need to hike taxes now so we can blame it on the democrats"