John Boehner Needs To Take A Line From Cool Hand Luke

Remember the “failure to communicate” scene from that famous Paul Newman movie?

The Daily Caller reports that Obama’s camp is more than happy to go over the fiscal cliff

The first of two December 3 leaks came via the left-wing Mother Jones publication, where columnist David Corn reported that “according to senior administration officials, Obama is not eager to go over the cliff, but he is willing. If no deal is reached by the end of the month, all the Bush tax cuts — for the rich and not-rich — will evaporate.”

“Obama would then demand in early January that the new Congress immediately pass legislation to reinstate the lower tax rates for the bottom 98 percent,” wrote Corn.

Corn’s claim was later seconded by a left-wing columnist at The Washington Post, Greg Sargent, who sometimes is used by the White House to leak official views.

“I have just confirmed that [Corn’s report] is accurate — Obama is willing, albeit very reluctant, to go over the cliff,” Sargent wrote.

This stance puts Republicans at a disadvantage because the “fiscal cliff” will automatically raise upper-income taxes, ensuring “Dems can come back and move to pass just the middle class tax cuts, challenging Republicans to vote against renewing them after they have expired,” Sargent wrote.

Fair enough. The GOP should take him up on his offer, and then embark on a large-scale PR campaign saying the time for pitting Americans against each other is over – and if tax rates are to go up on one group of us they should go up on all of us.

And then craft a bill which, while putting in broader and flatter tax rates, eliminates a bunch of deductions which explicitly target rich liberals.

Like for example, eliminating the ability to deduct state income taxes from federal income taxes, which is a deduction that essentially subsidizes the wealthy in places like New York, California, Connecticut and Maryland. Want to know why the rich don’t raise hell about those millionaire surtaxes in New York City and elsewhere? Because they take the deduction and it amounts to those states ripping off Uncle Sam.

Or throwing a surtax on income earned for project work of a duration of six months or less that doesn’t involve the hiring of employees. Namely, this is a tax on Hollywood actors and it’s a colossal “F-you” to them. It’s a great opportunity to rile up those people, who campaigned for Obama and raised millions of dollars for him, in hopes that a few of them will screech about higher taxes. The hypocrisy will make for great fun.

Sure, these things are directly contradictory to the stated goal of treating all Americans the same. So what? Democrats are nakedly dishonest and contradictory all the time, and yet the public responds by throwing up their hands and saying “both parties do it.” Fair enough. Toss the rules out the window and play politics the way Obama does. We know that it’s impossible to get a grand bargain with Obama, because he won’t bargain in good faith. So don’t try. Play his game and beat him at it.

Go over the cliff, and do it on a point of principle that if Obama wants to soak the rich he has to be willing to cause collateral damage.

And like Strother Martin in the movie, make sure to let folks know that this is what Obama wanted.

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