Obama's New Hardline Approach

It's a good thing that President Obama has realized that the GOP (Great Obstructionist Party) won't deal in good faith with him on any measures to boost the economy. The Rethuglicans have calculated that if the economy remains weak, they win in 2012, and they're counting on low-information voters to blame the White House, rather than to look a little deeper at who was obstructing recovery efforts. Hopefully in a sign of things to come, Obama hit the Rethug millionaire tax "class warfare" nonsense head-on yesterday in a Rose Garden speech. As the Kaplan Daily's Dana Milbank noted:

"Let us begin by stipulating that President Obama’s new budget plan is unrealistic, highly partisan and a non-starter on Capitol Hill. That’s what’s so good about it. At last, the president hasn’t conceded the race before the starter’s gun, hasn’t opened the bidding with his bottom line, hasn’t begun a game of strip poker in his boxer shorts. Whichever metaphor you choose, it was refreshing to see the president in the Rose Garden on Monday morning delivering a speech that, for once, appealed to the heart rather than the cerebrum."

Indeed. The Dems will find that the majority of the public wants tax reform and the wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes, particularly if programs for the middle class are going to suffer more cuts. Regardless of the legislative outcome, this is a losing philosophical fight for the Rethugs, who have been exposed as the party for the economic elites at the expense of the middle class.