President Barack Obama - Tax Raiser In Chief

FYI – 

Last night, President Obama made it clear that raising taxes on working families and small businesses remains his top priority, making him the lone voice in Washington still calling for a tax hike. Below are reactions from across the spectrum:

Isolation: President Obama Continues To Call For Tax Hikes Despite His Own Party Abandoning Them. We've watched dozens of these speeches over the years, and this was more like a DNC fund-raiser than an Oval Office address. Though President Obama referred to the need to compromise, his idea of compromise was to call on the public to overwhelm Republicans with demands to raise taxes. ... One irony is that Mr. Obama's demands for tax increases have already been abandoned by Members of his own party in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid knows that Democrats running for re-election next year don't want to vote to raise taxes, so he's fashioning a bill to raise the debt ceiling that includes only reductions in spending. But Mr. Obama never mentioned that rather large fact about Mr. Reid's effort. (The Wall Street Journal, 7/25/11)

• President Obama’s Continued Demand For Tax Increases Demonstrates He Is Completely “Divorced From Reality.” He ridiculed the Republican plan, saying it didn’t ask for sacrifices from the rich. But wait, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) doesn’t have taxes in his plan. In fact, his whole plan was an indictment of Reid’s no-tax plan. Apparently, he assumed no one was keeping up with current developments. ... It was a speech entirely divorced from reality. The Senate Democrats can’t pass tax hikes. The grand bargain can’t get through the Congress with jumbo tax hikes. It is he who rejected a deal that had the agreement of House and Senate leaders. (The Washington Post, 7/25/11)

Video: Gloria Borger: No One Is Talking About Tax Increases Except For President Obama. "What was interesting also is that the debate we've been having in Washington today seems to have moved beyond the tax increases. At least in the short term, nobody today is talking about tax increases except Barack Obama, who still talked about that tonight in his speech. The plan by Harry Reid contains no tax increases, in the short term. The plan by John Boehner contains no tax increases." (CNN, 7/25/11)

• Not Even Senate Democrats Are Talking About Raising Taxes “At The Moment.” As Republicans and Democrats continue trying to hammer out the details of rival plans to avert a debt crisis, President Obama on Monday called for a proposal that will raise more revenue ... At the moment, neither Senate Democrats nor House Republicans are talking about tax revenues as part of the final deal. (The Los Angeles Times, 7/25/11)

Jonathan Chait: President Obama Is Positioning Himself For Failure. I'm not really sure what Obama was trying to accomplish in his speech. I thought he would try to find some kind of lowest common denominator between the Reid and Boehner plans that would stand a chance of passing Congress. He didn't. Instead he appealed once again to the Grand Bargain. If Obama thinks Congress will pass something like that, he's nuts. The Senate might, but the House never, ever would. The most rational explanation for Obama's speech is that he's positioning himself for failure. (The New Republic, 7/25/11)

• President Obama’s Insistence On Higher Taxes Brought Down The Chance For A Grand Bargain. the White House negotiating process was inadequate. ... Everything was mysterious, shifting and slippery. One day the president was agreeing to an $800 billion revenue increase; the next day he was asking for $400 billion more. Spending cuts that seemed to be part of the package suddenly seemed hollow. Negotiating partners disappeared. It was phenomenally hard to figure out exactly who was offering what. Democrats in Congress were kept in the dark and were understandably suspicious. It was all a recipe for misunderstandings, hurt feelings and collapse. (The New York Times, 7/26/11)