Posted by
ApolloSpeaks on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 1:53:54 PM
Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal that if Obama fails to reach a deal with House Republicans, and his abysmally weak trickle growth recovery turns into a job killing recession, his job approval rating will plummet. Why? Because, as I explained elsewhere, when Obama fully extended the Bush tax rates for all Americans in 2010 he said, and I quote :"Raising taxes on ANYONE [high, low, middle income folks] when the economy is weak would hurt the recovery." When Obama is asked why he let the Bush rates expire knowing it would hurt the economy what can he say in his defense? He can't deny that he said it. He can't say it was misunderstood or taken out of context. He can't say he did it for the good of the country. He can't say that he erred and wrongly thought the economy was strong enough to sustain tax hikes without doing damage-he'd look like a jerk. And if he said that he did it so the rich would pay their fair share then he'll look like an ideologically driven class warfare nut who cared nothing about the consequences to the economy so long as the top 2% got taxed. If Obama lets all the Bush rates expire and the economy sinks as he predicted it would he won't be able to escape blame as Rove says. The public will hold him and Republicans accountable for the mess as he extended all the Bush rates in 2010 to prevent a calamity, and could have done so again.
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COMMENTS & ANSWERS ON HUFFPO TO THIS POST
Librick writes:
Baloney, Apollo.
My reply:
Why wouldn't you assign some of the blame to Obama when he said in 2010 that raising taxes on ANYONE when the economy is weak would hurt the recovery?
Librick writes
Because I have my opinion and you have yours and everything in your post did not make what I assess asa cogent analysis of the scenario.
My reply
And what is you analysis for not assigning some of the blame to Obama when he could have prevented the economic damage he predicted would happen if all the Bush rates expired?
Actually, the President lied in 2010. He got some additional stimulus in the tradeoff for the extension of the top bracket cut and needed to justify breaking his promise to let them expire. The economy is somewhat stronger now than it was then.
The Congressional Research Service concluded in September that allowing the top rates to return to Clinton-era levels will not have a significant adverse effect on the economy.
My reply
Obama lied? How do you know that? Especially when Christina Romer wrote a paper with her husband proving that tax hikes on anyone [rich, poor, middle class] in any economy have a contractionary effect on growth?
Moreover, the economy is demonstrably weaker now than it was in December 2010 when Obama made that statement: Productivity is down, income is down, sales are down, consummer spending and confidence are down, capital investment and business confidence are down. In December 2010 GDP was 2.4%. Today it's 2.7% due mostly to government spending and an unplanned increase in inventory. Moreover,much of the fall in the UE rate is due to discouraged workers.