“Okay, that makes absolutely no sense…”
Lawrence O’Donnell:
[I]f the Super Committee is deadlocked and cannot make recommendations to Congress or if the Super Committee’s recommendations are voted down by Congress, automatic spending cuts will be triggered. 50% from domestic spending and 50% from defense spending.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:
If it fails, either to produce something or if Congress fails to act on it, you can be sure that the President will honor his promise to veto any legislation that would extend the Bush high income tax cuts beyond 2012, which would, of course, create nearly $1 trillion in revenue raisers when that happens.
Lawrence O’Donnell:
Okay, that makes absolutely no sense… What the White House and the media so far seem to not understand about that is the President will never, ever have a chance to veto legislation that would extend only the Bush top tax bracket. no Democrat or Republican has offered or will ever offer a bill that extends only the Bush top tax rate. if such a bill were offered and passed in both bodies, which will never happen, yeah, the President would veto it. But the President’s firm veto threat you just heard is for a mythological tax bill that no one has ever suggested and no one will be in favor of. Republicans want to maintain all of the Bush tax rates, including the bottom one. not just the top tax rate. Democrats and the President want to maintain all of the Bush tax rates except the top Bush tax bracket.
That is what the President campaigned on in his Presidential campaign, that is what he tried to achieve last December and the game of chicken on the tax breaks the Republicans have won come down to this, if Republicans take no action, all the Bush tax breaks will expire and all the tax brackets, including the bottom tax bracket, currently at 10%, that will go up to 15%. they’ll all go up. so far the President and the Democrats are more in favor of preserving the lower Bush tax brackets than they are in favor of raising the top tax bracket. that, and only that, is why the President didn’t raise the top tax bracket back in December and that is why legislatively he will never be offered a stand-alone opportunity to do nothing but raise the top Bush tax bracket. Until the President decides that, if necessary, in order to get the top income tax bracket raised, he is willing to see every tax bracket go up, then the Republicans will always, always win the fight to extend the Bush tax rates.
