I Think Obama Is Bluffing

[Benton D Struckcheon]

111. You're not getting it

The Prez can only propose.
Actual bills have to pass both parts of Congress for anything real to happen. There is precisely zero chance of that happening as long as there is a single penny of taxes in anything Obama proposes. Look at Boehner's reaction to this proposal if you don't believe me.
Boehner has a title but no power. He can't negotiate because he has no position from which to start a negotiation. No one in his party will back him if he allows a single penny of tax increases to go through. He knows it, and so does the President.
In military terms Obama's set up a killing field. Obama's manning the outer wall of the castle protecting SS and Medicare, and Boehner and his Republicans have by all appearances breached it. But now they face a second, inner wall. The Dems are up top on that wall. So now Obama and company are way up high on the first wall, Sanders and his folks are way up high in the inner wall, and Boehner and his Republicans find themselves between them and down low, hemmed in by their complete inability to actually negotiate because they have no intention of actually ceding anything on the tax front.
All that remains is to pick them off in 2014.