By Greg Sargent
The fact that many liberals and Dems answer that question in the negative is perhaps the primary reason the White House is having so much trouble selling them on the tax cut deal. Obama has promised to do this, but libs and Dems just don't believe him.
Here's a case in point. As I reported earlier today, the White House is circulating a chart designed to prove that Obama and Dems got far more from the tax deal, despite extending the tax cuts for the rich. But now MoveOn, which is organizing against the tax deal, has responded with a chart of its own demonstrating the massive bonanza Republicans win over the next 10 years if you assume the tax cuts for the rich won't really be repealed in two years:
The serious point that this chart gets at is that liberals and Dems just don't believe the tax cuts for the rich will ever expire, no matter how firm Obama's vow to have this fight again in 2012. As Ben Smith put it today, the extension of the high end cuts constitutes "moving a structural shift in the American tax system toward permanence, while the other large measures are much more temporary."
The deal's supporters will argue that Obama will of course want to have this fight. Arguing for an expiration of the high end cuts is the single best pushback Obama will be able to muster when Republicans start calling for spending cuts to reduce the deficit. What's more, 2012 is an election year. If he didn't take up the fight he'd be reneging on a campaign promise he made twice, once in 2008 and again in 2010. Opponents of the deal argue: Yeah, right. Obama and Dems are really going to raise taxes during an election?
But let's presume Obama is going to take up this argument. Will he win it? He has said that if the economy improves, it will sweep away the GOP's best case: That you should never raise taxes on anyone in a recession. He has promised to mount a protracted, big-picture argument with Republicans about taxes, the deficit, and the proper role of government. But as Kevin Drum notes, Dems have yet to win the big arguments about government and taxes. And let's face it: The makeup of the Senate in the next Congress is only going to make some kind of "compromise" on the tax cuts more likely.
I tend to believe Obama will indeed wage this battle again, and will give it his all. But whatever ends up happening, the bottom line is that it would be a lot easier to sell liberals and Dems right now on temporarily extending the high-end tax cuts if they didn't believe it's just another step towards making them permanent.
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