"Playing Taxes Hold ’Em" by PAUL KRUGMAN at the NY Times

[applegrove]

Playing Taxes Hold ’Em

by PAUL KRUGMAN at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/opinion/krugman-playing-taxes-hold-em.html?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

"SNIP.................................................


The first episode ran in 2011, as President Obama made his first attempt to cut a long-run fiscal deal — a so-called Grand Bargain — with John Boehner, the speaker of the House. Mr. Obama was holding a fairly weak hand, after a midterm election in which Democrats took a beating. Nonetheless, the concessions he offered were breathtaking: He was willing to accept huge spending cuts, not to mention a rise in the Medicare eligibility age, in return for a vague promise of higher revenue without any increase in tax rates.

This deal, if implemented, would have been a huge victory for Republicans, deeply damaging both programs dear to Democrats and the Democratic political brand. But it never happened. Why? Because Mr. Boehner and members of his party couldn’t bring themselves to accept even a modest rise in taxes. And their intransigence saved Mr. Obama from himself.

Now the game is on again — but with Mr. Obama holding a far stronger hand. He and his party won a solid victory in this year’s election. And the legislative clock is very much in their favor, too. All the Bush tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of the month.

A brief digression: I’ve become aware of a new effort by the G.O.P. to bully reporters into referring only to the “Bush-era” tax cuts, probably in the hope of dissociating those cuts, which they want to preserve, from a president voters now regard with disdain. But George W. Bush and his administration devised those cuts and rammed them through Congress, and it’s deceptive to suggest otherwise.

.................................................SNIP"

[benld74]

1. HA! "Playing Taxes Hold ’Em" One of the BEST titles of 2012, IMHOP