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One of the big jokes about Obama’s tax the ‘rich’ argument is that even if you did tax the ‘rich’ it would basically have no effect on the deficit. It would simply drop from 1.2 trillion a year to 1.1 trillion a year...essentially no change.

Still the tax the ‘rich’ argument was powerful red meat for the Dems because they honestly believe that solves all of our problems. Their favorite shows are Honey Boo-Boo and Aerican Idol, afterall. We’e not talking about wizards, here. Still, This simply has to be acknowledged as a poilitical reality.

The question before us is how to handle this vacuous proposal in a politically tennable way. In other words, it’s politics baby!! I sort of like the approach of agreeing to remove tax loopholes rather than raising taxes. In the end, I suppose it’s the same thing but, at least we get the fig leaf of not raising taxes and therefore holding firm to our principals.

In the end, the vacuous approach by Obama will be shown to have zero effect on the deficit should he accept it but, here’s the rub. In my opinion, Obama will not accept it. His goal has always been to raise taxes on everyone by allowing all Bush Tax cuts to fade away and then politically placing the blame on the ‘radical’ republicans for not moving his way on taxing the rich. Let’s face it, Obamacare, free phones, and crony capitalism needs to funded and Obama needs the midddle class money whether he admits it or not. He’s playing a game and so are we (whether we want to admit it or not), so we better play it right.

This is why it’s so important that we offer up ‘tax loophole’ reform and not tax rate increases. It gives us our figleaf without compromising our principles. If Obama rejects it, it’s on him politically. If he accepts it, nothing will improve and it’s still on him. It’s politics.