I don’t want to take issue with his ‘fight to the last man’ argument. That’s someone else’s problem. But I do want to revisit some of the policy proposals he think would give the GOP some gains with voters. Some of them are interesting to me.
Hold your ground on taxes or be prepared to go over the cliff. OK, he seems to think that if the GOP gives in on rates they’ll lose their position of the party of low taxes. Maybe true, but I don’t see them winning that fight. The polling numbers are grim for the GOP on the cliff right now and going over it is likely to find them being blamed.
Put forward a plan for reforming the tax code. I actually think this is a good idea. An easily understood plan out there for debate would make it look like their actively participating in the discussion. He also advocates what he calls a ‘soak the rich’ approach whereby “getting rid of the billions of dollars in government benefits, taxpayer subsidies and corporate welfare the wealthy receive each year and don’t need, and by means-testing government programs from unemployment benefits to farm subsidies.”
This, I admit, I find intriguing. The issue of means-testing entitlements would, I think, go over well with the electorate. Ditto with limiting subsidies for large, wealthy corporations and such. I don’t think one voters in 1,000 would argue that ExxonMobil needs subsidies. That’s how I’d pitch it to the public. There’s a strong sense of resentment out there towards large corporations, and even smaller ones, as benefiting from government more than the citizenry.
Thiessen also advocates limiting entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare for the wealthiest seniors. This would face enormous backlash from those getting benefits and the message would have to be carefully structured but might sell.
Debt ceiling. This I disagree with. Thiessen is arguing that the GOP should attach its plans to the coming debt ceiling legislation. I think he’s dreaming. Sure, the GOP could do that, but they’re already perceived as the ones who screwed up the LAST debt ceiling fight. To do that again would only hurt them more at the polls.
He’s of the opinion that the President would have no choice but to sign it because of some quotes from Geithner during the last round. But that’s not something I’d break the bank on. Yes, it might be a headache, but it’s more of a headache for the GOP to be, again, branded the party that puts ideology ahead of country, especially during a time where they’re already falling back.
In all, not a bad column. I normally think Thiessen is a bit knee-jerk and combative. But at least some of his points are things that I, as a true blue D at this point, could see myself seriously considering supporting.
Yea, Thissen’s strategy seems to be holding (popular) lower rates for middle-class hostage to protect (unpopular) lower rates for the rich. Its pretty hard to see how that wouldn’t backfire on the GOP. Especially after Obama just one an election in which this was a major issue.
Its one of those things that sounds good until you actually present a plan. Then you end up either taking deductions away from the Middle class, not raising that much money and/or getting rid of popular deductions like those for charitable giving. Which is why the GOP hasn’t actually presented a specific plan. Plus, in any case, while simplifying the tax-code is generally a good idea, its not a simple thing to do, and its not something that’s going to get slapped together before January.
Meh, the problem with this is that it doesn’t actually save much money, because the actual number of rich people is pretty small. Giving them SS and Medicare benefits doesn’t cost that much money relative to the size of the programs. At the same time, to implement means-testing, the gov’t has to hire a bunch of accountants and lawyers to audit people and do the actual testing,
Its the kind of thing that sounds good, but ends up being more trouble then its worth.
The GOP has already tried the debt ceiling gambit twice, against Presidents who were facing re-election, and in both cases its done little to advance their priorities and a lot to hurt them at the polls. Now that there’s a Prez who doesn’t have to worry about re-election, I doubt the GOP will reach over to get burned a third time.
Plus its a little depressing that pundits arguments for having the GOP refuse to raise the debt ceiling boil down to: “act crazy, and Obama will be to darn responsible not to back down”.
And the Battle of Chosin was an example of a well executed retreat. So Thissen fails at historical analogy, as well as punditry.
Agreed. The other downside to means testing is that it starts to become a welfare program, and you can use an us-vs.-them approach to start getting rid of it. If everyone gets SS and Medicare, we’re all in it together. If everyone except the top 10% gets it, OK, I guess this is a good program. We need to cut it? OK, a little more means testing…look, only those lazy slackers who didn’t save for retirement get SS – we should kick those slackers to the curb.
Also, if they do present a plan, they need to make absolutely sure that nobody in the middle class ends up paying more, and nobody in “the rich” ends up paying less. Even the best-laid plans run afoul of this; something as “obvious” as raising the tax on dividends and capital gains back to the same levels as earned income will result in people pointing out that middle class people who have dividend-paying stocks in their kids’ names so they can make some money towards their education, and pretty much anybody that has invested in a mutual fund for their future, will have their taxes increased.
As for getting rid of the charitable deduction, how loudly did people complain when they got rid of the old “if you don’t itemize, you can still deduct 50% of your charitable contributions” rule?
Social Security benefits are already means-tested/limited to some extent, since they get taxed at various rates depending on how much other income you have. Since that bullet has already been bitten (during Reagan(?)), now it would just be a matter of diddling with the tax rates, which should be much more palatable.