The stagnation of the Bush Tax Cuts and stalwart opposition to anything reasonable by the Republicans made me think about how these cuts came about in the first place and where to go from here. The first act of the lame duck congress should be to make all but the top end cuts permanent and do so by budget reconciliation.
This is how we achieve decoupling. How are Republicans going to fight this? There are not enough Democratic sellouts in either the Senate or House to stop it, it is pure populism, it draws attention to who we are fighting for vs. who they are, and there is no good way for Fox or the Republicans to spin this to their advantage:
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They complain about budget reconciliation? Point out that since we all agree on the low end cuts anyway there is no reason this should be contentious.
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They complain that Obama is not being Bipartisan? Since when are Republicans opposed to middle class tax cuts?
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They complain that Obama is trying to raise taxes? Say we are willing to work with them on their concerns over the top cuts since that is the only point of contention and hammer them hard for their advocacy of the super rich and their disregard for the debt.
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They use it to bring up the Health Care vote? Frame it as Republicans again standing up for the rich and powerful against the middle class. Use this to show that if they are actually willing to filibuster tax cut extensions who's side have they really been on?
My bet is that Republicans would see this trap resulting in an overwhelming and bipartisan win for the president setting up another easy win on the top rate.
Democrats already have the people on their side for this one. We lose this and I have a hard time seeing what we can win on.
So, why would we not do this? What are the downsides I am not seeing?