very good post. You know if this was about abortion and it was 50 for all/most abortions legal and 11 for all/most abortions illegal the media would be proclaiming how overwhelmingly pro-choice the public is.
Or imagine if a poll had 50 for definitely or probably voting for Obama in 2012, 11 for definitely/probably voting for the GOP, and 32 who were 50-50 and unsure. What would they say about that?
I do think the GOP’s 100% no tax stance is hurting them. For example, the corporate jet tax is only 2-3B over 10 years. The oil/gas taxes are only 20B over 10 years. The millionaires/billionaires tax brings in more but barely anyone will end up paying it.
It depends what they can get. If they can actually get changes to entitlements such as raising the SS/Medicare ages to 67 or higher, maybe means testing, if they can get potential corporate tax reform or other simplification of the rates, if you could maybe get a deal on tort reform, etc... Well, some of those things may be worth bending a bit on taxes that leave the marginal rates untouched and only affect an extremely small # of people.
I don’t think the GOP will lose in 2012 because of taxes on corporate jets or oil/gas companies. If anything, Obama’s base and dems would be way more deflated by the entitlement changes. No GOP President will ever be able to raise the age or means test or anything like that. Only a dem can. If the GOP can take advantage of this moment and get Obama to do that and the price is taxes go up a bit on corporate jets and oil companies and multi-millionaires/billionaires, that’s fine with me.
They could even cordinate with the WH candiadtes and they could all oppose it and still come out looking good.
Same with defense cuts. I’m as hawkish and pro-military as anyone, but even I’d agree that there’s probably plenty of cuts that could be made in defense. That we’re not as effecient as we could be.
The main point is that depending on what we get in return I think the GOP should be more openminded in terms of what they’re willing to bend on. Maybe they are and they’re just holding back until the moment of maximum leverage.
But I think there may a real opportunity to get some things that have heretofore been unthinkable and it would be a shame to let pure ideology on taxes or defense act as a hang-up.
We won’t know anything until the very end. Both sides are waiting because they know that’s when they’ll have maximum leverage. There’ll be another 2+ weeks of this.