“The GOP has been saying that these increased rates will hurt small businesses and cost over 700,000 jobs. Do we really believe that or is it just meaningless rhetoric?”
You are right, but part of this is to make it to the “next day to fight again” and not let Lucy pull out the football again on Charlie in a stalemate that the other side believes doing nothing is a winning strategy (they get their tax increases and blame the Reps for all bad things).
Actually, I should have made the unemployment rate 6.5% in my proposal, but start the actual negotiation at 6%. Instead of making the tax increase “time-dependent” (expires after so many months) we make it “performance dependent”. i.e. tie it to jobs, after all that is what we are trying to create here. Even Obozo said that when things are bad, we don’t raise taxes. Of course he doesn’t believe what he says, because somebody just writes for him.
BTW there is a good chance that Harry Reid would not even allow it to come up for a vote.
The GOP always rationalizes why it is not the best time to fight. We did that during the 2010 lame duck session following our historic victory in the midterms. We decided to just extend the Bush tax cuts for another year rather than make them permanent. We are back in the same place again with the reality that Obama will have another four years. And by the way, the GOP did absolutely nothing in terms of making actual cuts in spending. Is it any wonder why the GOP is called the Stupid Party?
The simple and best answer is to stick to your principles and go down fighting. We either do what is best for the country or not. We are fast becoming a minority party due to demographics and a culture of dependency. Obamacare, another huge entitlement program, will be implemented. But it will usher in more taxes and greater deficits and debt. It is time to draw a line in the sand and tell the public that we can not continue down this road. Hear us now and believe us later. The collapse of the welfare state is inevitable. Now is the time to position ourselves to pick up the pieces.
How about we target the negotiations at below 6% black youth unemployment?
That would put some itching powder into the landscape.
The NappyOne