Obama wants $1.6 trillion in new tax hikes.

No, really.

President Obama is taking a tough opening stance in talks over deficit reduction, pushing Republicans to accept a plan that calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue over the next ten years, according to reports.

The figure is double the $800 billion last discussed by the White House and House Speaker Boehner (R-Ohio) during their 2011 negotiations on raising the debt-ceiling limit.

Let me tell you ahead of time what the Republican response to this is going to be: No.  Really.  If Obama couldn’t get 800 billion last year, he’s not going to get 1.6 trillion this year.  I don’t care how much people reading this mistrust the House leadership; this number is not an invitation for negotiations.  It’s an invitation for the House delegation to walk out of the talks until a grown-up can be found to replace Barack Obama in them.  Which would almost impress me, except I suspect that the President still has no real skill at negotiating with people who can tell him to kindly go engage in auto-erotic activity.

Stuff like this tells me that the next four years are going to be interesting times.

11 thoughts on “Obama wants $1.6 trillion in new tax hikes.”

  1. Theory:
    He wants that $800B. This is an opening gambit that allows Boehner to seem “reasonable” and cave on half the President’s ask and, lo! the media will sing their praises while our paychecks burn.

  2. The problem with the Republican leadership, in my opinion, is that it cowers before the mainstream media. Once the media ups the pressure, I expect Boehner, McConnell, Cantor, et.al. to fold like cheap card tables. Of course, I was wrong about the outcome of the last election, so what do I know?

  3. Won’t matter.
    .
    The Dems haven’t figured out the lesson of the 1970s .. all an increase does is to increase the number of people looking for and using loopholes… and, of course, increase the number of people unemployed.
    .
    Shrug, baby, shrug.
    .
    Mew

  4. He wants the fiscal cliff: so that when the economy tanks, as will no matter what, he and the media can blame the EVIL house for the suffering.

  5. Of course the Republican leadership is going to fold. But they’ll probably “compromise” on 1.5 trillion in new taxes, with an ‘agreement’ to cut spending in years 9 and 10 of the 10 year plan.

    And when they do, they’ll lose the House.

    1. Doesn’t matter. See above.
      .
      D.C. can futz with tax rates all they want, they will not get more than around 20% GDP revenue. As the amount of tax people owe increases, the more people are willing to risk to opt out of paying through legal and extra-legal means.
      .
      Mew

  6. They should do the tax increases the same way Democrats do spending cuts: defer all the big money amounts to the last half of the timeframe. “Sure, we’ll increase taxes by $1.56 billion from 2017 to 2022, and by $40 billion from 2012 to 2017. Done!”

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