This has got to have John Boehner perplexed.
According to David Corn of Mother Jones and Greg Sargent of The Washington Post, President Obama won’t give in to Republican ransom demands over tax cuts for the wealthy—even if that means going over the so-called fiscal cliff on Jan. 1, 2013. Writes Corn:
According to senior administration officials, Obama is not eager to go over the cliff, but he is willing. If no deal is reached by the end of the month, all the Bush tax cuts — for the rich and not-rich — will evaporate. Obama would then demand in early January that the new Congress immediately pass legislation to reinstate the lower tax rates for the bottom 98 percent.
To his right Boehner will have teaparty caucus screaming for an economic Kamikaze dive into austerity oblivion, to his other right he’ll have the GOP’s big defense contractor money screaming for him to raise the white flag. It should get interesting if this holds.