that someone doesn t think we need. right. and this is where i think you have to be careful and you can say, sure, the republicans are kind of boxed in here on the tax issue if we get to january 1st and nothing happens, they lose on taxes. either that will happen or they will give in on taxes. that much is true. i think the debt ceiling is very much an issue right now and you can see that in some of the stuff leaking out about the negotiations. specifically, a report out last week said the white house is thinking sort of the basis the framework for a deal was coming into focus and that included the top rates for the wealthy going up to 37% in exchange for raising the medicare age from 65 to 67. why, if the rates are already going to go up on january 1st, would you settle for a deal like that at the white house and it s the latest leverage that the republicans have. they are threatening to use the debt ceiling like they did in 2011. obama has ruled out, explicitly
that s not until further down the road. they just have nowhere to go with this. so i think truly the best thing, the smartest thing for them to do is to go ahead, raise the rates for the upper incomes because they just have nowhere to go in this debate, especially with the public against them the way that it is and because people like limbaugh and ann coulter and various congressional representatives have come out and said, we should go ahead and do this, everybody is going to have cover for at least not going crazy. maybe some of them will vote no but at least not going crazy when rates inevitably go up. the president just said the deal that he would like to do would be the tax rates that we know about and then he has this little line in here, make some tough spending cuts on things that we don t need. now, things that you don t need are not tough spending cuts. there isn t anything there that s available to be can cut
cuts. some democrats voted for the bush tax rates. so nothing of reaganism, whatever that was, lived after the reagan presidency and nothing of clintonism lived after the clinton s presidency. what, then, of gingrichism, newt gingrich was in congress during all three of the presidencies we ve considered here. reagan, the first bush, and clinton. during the republican years when republicans started drifting towards agreements to raise taxes, newt gingrich attacked those republicans. he wasn t willing to take on president reagan head on but in 1984 he actually called senator bob dole, quote, the tax collector for the welfare state. never mind that senator dole was doing president reagan s legislative bidding. he was condemned by then junior congressman gingrich just for
compassion this christmas season, save it for john boehner and the house republicans. president obama is treating them as if he has them over a barrel headed if for fiscal cliff. and he does. this is not because mr. obama won re-election. after all, he won 51%. needed the greatest voter mobilization operation in history to do it. his leverage now stems from the law, which ends the bush tax rates on january 1, imposing new higher tax rate and a steep set of spending cuths that fall with special force on military. nobody wants these things but republicans, the low tax and strong defense party, want them least of all. not only that. but polls indicate that if these things come to pass, the public by large margin will blame the g.o.p. speaker boehner is trying to head this off bargaining with the president to keep tax rates they are now and raising revenue and closing tax loophole. mr. boehner want the president
entitlements. the largest of which is medicaid. there are lots of bills and plans and approaches that have been presented over the last several years. i understand that. i want to read a quote from somebody you are familiar with. the ceo of fedex. this is what he said about tax rates. a lot of mythology in washington that it s small business that creates all the jobs in the united states and if you raise the rates on the top 2%, you ll kill jobs. the vast majority are produced by capital investment in equipment and software. that s not done by small business. he s saying stop fighting over this 2% and move on. what he is looking for is certainty in the regulatory world and in taxation. we hear that quite a bit.