On Monday, calling for shared sacrifice, President Obama proposed a two-year pay freeze for federal civilian employees. Broad sacrifice is a tenet of deficit reduction, and a freeze would save $5 billion through 2012, and $60 billion over 10 years. But Mr. Obama did not say who else should sacrifice. Closing the pet loophole of multimillionaire private equity partners would raise $25 billion over 10 years. Ending Bush tax cuts for affluent Americans would raise $700 billion over 10 years.
On Tuesday, looking for “sensible common ground,” Mr. Obama dispatched two top White House officials to negotiate with Republicans on the Bush-era tax cuts. The problem is, common ground has already been found — and abandoned. Both sides have long agreed that tax cuts for people earning less than $250,000 should be extended. That is more than enough. It would preserve $3.2 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Republicans, however, insist that the high-end cuts also be extended, bringing the total 10-year cost to $4 trillion.
Congressional Democrats were too timid to bring the issue up for a vote before the election and took a beating anyway. Now they are faced with extending the tax cuts in the lame-duck session and are bound to extend some or all of the cuts for the rich. The only real question is in exchange for what, if anything?
(Original here.)
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