Solving the deficit by nothing nothing. Austin Frakt/CBO data, via Ezra Klein
In his speech on the deficit today, President Obama took a clear stand against renewing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy when they are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012:
In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.
There is good reason to be skeptical about this since, as President Obama himself noted, he previously extended the tax cuts for the wealthy because he could not find the votes to extend the middle-class tax cuts on their own.
As such, during a blogger call with David Plouffe this afternoon, I wanted to know what President Obama would do if once again he could not find the votes to extend the middle-class tax cuts without also extending the cuts for the wealthy. So I asked Plouffe if President Obama would allow all of the Bush tax cuts to expire, including those for the middle-class, if that was his only option to avoid renewing the tax cuts for the wealthy?
In response, Plouffe said "he's not going to renew those tax cuts."
Despite the clarity of the initial portion of his response, Plouffe went on to talk for a while about future vagaries in a way that was not reassuring. So, after a couple minutes, looking for more clarity, I followed up: "just to be clear, that's a yes—he's not going to renew them under any circumstances?"
Plouffe's response was "he's not going to renew them," followed by another minute of talking.
While I did not receive the simple "yes" I was looking for, Plouffe did say twice, without conditions, that President Obama was not going to renew the tax cuts. As such, until we hear otherwise, we should assume that means President Obama will not extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy even if that means the middle-class tax cuts expire.
We should keep asking for more clarity, of course, but this appears to mean President Obama is refreshingly taking a harder line in response to Republican hostage-taking.