Here’s what Republicans really hated about Obama’s news conference
Posted by Ezra Klein on December 31, 2012 at 3:48 pm
President Obama’s cheerful, mocking statement enraged Republicans. But the bigger problem is he said something Republican leaders have been trying to hide from their members.
Obama said, clearly, that if the GOP wants more spending cuts later, they’re going to need to hand over more taxes, too. In fact, he said it repeatedly.
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I’m willing to reduce our government’s Medicare bills by finding new ways to reduce the cost of health care in this country. That’s something that we all should agree on. We want to make sure that Medicare is there for future generations. But the current trajectory of health care costs has gone up so high, we’ve got to find ways to make sure that it’s sustainable.
But that kind of reform has to go hand and hand with doing some more work to reform our tax code, so that wealthy individuals, the biggest corporations, can’t take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren’t available to most of the folks standing up here; aren’t available to most Americans.
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Obama “just moved the goalpost again. Significantly,” tweeted Mitch McConnell’s spokesman.
That’s really why Obama’s comments posed a threat to a deal. The GOP’s congressional leaders want to tell their members that if they just vote for this modest tax increase now, then they can move onto the debt ceiling, where their enhanced leverage will let them force a deal that’s all spending cuts.
Obama, in effect, said that’s not true. He said if Republicans raise taxes now, he’s going to pocket that tax increase and demand tax increases in the next deal, too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/31/heres-what-republicans-really-hated-about-obamas-news-conference/It seems Obama still might have the upper hand, even in the debt ceiling debate.
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