Dear Obama - the past year many of us worked our asses off to help get you re-elected....

[BlueStreak]

6. Most of the power was unused in the first term

Last edited Wed Nov 7, 2012, 10:21 PM - Edit history (1)

He always had his eye on how it would affect his reelection. Time to make it clear the new game is hardball.

Republicans want a lot of things and Obama must force them to come to the table.

For example, Obama has the upper hand on the Bush Tax thing. Everybody's taxes go up in January if there is no deal. He is in a position to at least partially curtail the free ride the 0.1% have been getting. We must put cap gains back to the 20% where it was before Bush. And we also need to end the carried interest provision that allows millionaires to use cap gains unfairly. There should also be an alternate minimum tax that offsets some of the money being stashed in offshore havens.

Obama can put the "grand bargain" back on the table because the GOP doesn't want cuts in the Pentagon. The bargain can include a new round of stimulus -- no more tax cuts please.

The leverage is all in Obama's hands. If there is no deal, then ALL the tax cuts expire and the military budget is hit according to the sequester deal. The bully pulpit means that Obama can go in front of the public daily explaining the bargain he has offered a recalcitrant Congress -- and that they are refusing to take that deal because they want to give more tax breaks to billionaires. That is a winning hand and the GOP knows it. They will make a deal.

And it is vital that this deal be structured in such a way that it is clear that the GOP is breaking away from the ridiculous Grover Norquist pledge. Obama can give them a little cover by setting this deal up to happen on January 1, so that it technically does not violate the Norquist pledge. But the key thing is that we have to break Republicans away from that Norquist crap because there will be other things that come up in the next 4 years that require some give and take on taxes.