Obama to Propose Capital Gains Tax Increase & Extending the Earned Income Credit

[The_Doctor]

Same stuff, different day.

The President isn't interested in doing anything but ginning up the 2016 Democratic base to vote for Hillary and positioning himself for his legacy. Basically, this is to all position Obama as the great liberal that his supporters saw him as (but he never truly governed as, in policy, to some extent). Conveniently enough, the Republican Congress will stop his agenda, and Obama will try to gin up the voters in 2016 to elect Hillary. The hue and cry will be "These evil Republicans! They're stopping (x goodie) from being given to you!"

The President is just cynically trying to please his liberal base, to keep the ACA law past 2017 and to hopefully keep a Democrat in the White House, so his executive orders can become basically impossible to roll back. It's pretty much too late for a grand bargain on domestic issues, because the 2016 race is heating up. Republicans would rather wait for the outcome of 2016 and negotiate with a new President, if they lose. Democrats would rather hope to regain the Senate in 2016 while keeping the White House, and have a fresh bargaining hand with the GOP House in 2017. The President is too much of a lame duck at this point (lame ducks don't accomplish many compromises this late in their tenure. Basically the sixth to eighth year is mostly foreign policy, historically).

This is win-win for Obama. Either Hillary wins because of the White House's efforts and the recovering economy, or the Republican wins, allowing Obama to let his ardent supporters cast him as a hero in the public's eyes. Down the road, Obama's supporters will begin lionizing him and the Democratic base (historically disappointed with him during his tenure) will overlook his transgressions and hail him as a FF. All this posturing is basically to ensure that legacy view.

Also he will try to take credit for the recovery, in the (bipartisan) time honored tradition. So that's the gist and purpose of tomorrow's State of the Union.

[The_Doctor]

[quote author=IceSpear link=topic=205968.msg4456438#msg4456438 date=14216
Sounds great to me.
[/quote]

This can backfire in the short term. Namely, a Republican wins in 2016 and is re-elected. That would decimate ObamaCare and leave Obama with a much weaker legacy. He still can have the rhetoric but not quite a full bodied legacy as he had hoped.

I can see a Republican government basically shredding key parts of the ACA and doing a tax cut. A Republican President would also be rolling back whatever Obama executive orders he could, left, right, and center. Especially on the EPA and environment.

The Democrats very much want to avoid this. But it's very plausible this will happen.