Does The President Really Want To Negotiate ?

Today’s Daily Caller is reporting that President Obama has turned down Speaker of the House John Boehner‘s offer to raise tax rates for Americans earning more than $1 million per year. The offer also included raising the government’s debt limit by roughly $1 trillion over its current level of $16.3 trillion.

The article reports:

Obama’s rapid spending — he has raised the national debt by $5.7 trillion since 2008 — means that he must persuade Congress to raise the debt ceiling again in the next few months.

Boehner’s Friday proposal would have transferred another $460 billion from roughly 400,000 investors and entrepreneurs to the federal government by raising their top marginal income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

Other federal, state and local taxes lift the effective tax rate on top earners to well over 50 percent.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, the White House has demanded that the GOP “acknowledge” that higher tax rates are needed.

This demand for the GOP to abandon its ideological principle against higher tax rates is itself a ideological demand from Obama, and spotlights his gamble that November’s election results can help him win a long-lasting ideological victory over his Republican adversaries.

I am not a big fan of John Boehner, but it does seem that he has done everything he can to try to reach an agreement with President Obama. It appears that it is the President who is not willing to negotiate.

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