TNR's Timothy Noah calls for killing the deal.
Noam Scheiber comments that the strategic consequences will be disastrous.
Joshua Green points out something even worse:
"Here’s what’s important about everything Democrats would get: It’s temporary; everything expires (presumably) within a year. Here’s what’s important about what Republicans would get: it’s permanent. The tax rates won’t expire."
So Obama helps the democrats lock in the bush tax rates forever..
Republican hack Philip Klein picks up the claims of republicans that this deal will enshrine "permanent Republican priorities in exchange for temporary Democratic priorities."
Temporary priorities= negotiating bait and nothing more
Biden has the nickname of McConnell whisperer in Washington. McConnell if you remember has been the republican most obstinate about not having rates rise on anyone rise, ever. Now he gets rewarded with what looks like a great deal for him.
It has always been a concern to me how the republicans can always choose who they want to negotiate with while the democrats go up against a unified party. Last summer biden led a group with eric cantor that preemptively agreed on spending cuts without any revenue at all. This allowed republicans to lock in the cuts from that negotiation and switch to obama with the spending cuts agreed as the new baseline.
The $250,000 threshold was always politically meaningful and concrete. It was the threshold that democrats ran on all year, and it was also a tax bracket that would have been tough to extend for republicans if we went over the cliff. Moving off the threshold AND not being willing to go over the cliff should give the republicans an insight into how obama will negotiate in his second term: same as the first, not well.