Point/Counterpoint: Does Obama want to Go Over the Fiscal Cliff?

White House Dossiers’ Keith Koffler doesn’t think the President wants to ruin his legacy by going off the fiscal cliff and presiding over two terms of a bad economy. He says, like Charles Krauthammer and others have also said, the Republicans Have a Lot of Leverage.

I don’t think President Obama wants to go down as the worst president in history, do you?

Well, that’s what going over the fiscal cliff will make him. And that’s why the Republicans have a lot a leverage.

The massive spending cuts and tax increases set to kick in January 2 will cause a second recession, from which we may not emerge for many months. The economy may not really get going for years. Obama will have presided over two terms of economic disaster. It will ruin his legacy, and sow the seeds for a major Republican revival.

Republican revival? But the Republicans are going to get blamed, you say.

They will, in the short run. But in the end, it will be the president who failed to somehow make a deal. Presidents are ultimately responsible for their presidencies. The good ones tame their enemies, pick off some of them and make them allies, and get a good result. The bad ones go over fiscal cliffs.The history books will say that Obama had to deal with a recalcitrant Congress. That will be the second thing school kids learn. But the first thing they will learn is that Obama sucked.

I still believe, despite the results of the 2012 election, that voters in the end blame those in power for wielding power ineffectively. Get out the vote operations and a charismatic candidate can only buy you so much time against reality.

The massive spending cuts will also eviscerate the U.S. military, resulting in bolder actions by our enemies that will make Obama seem weak and pitiful. Not only will the president’s economic record implode, but his foreign policy will be hamstrung. After all, we get stuff done in the world, ultimately, because people are afraid of us. Or they respect us, which is the same thing.

On the other hand,Rush Limbaugh has been arguing that Obama has no problem at all going over the fiscal cliff. He made the point that Beltway politicians and pundits are looking at this like Obama is a conventional politician, but he isn’t. He’s a deeply ideological Marxist who is looking to fundamentally transform the nation into a Socialist Utopia.

See, I talked to Senator McConnell today about this whole legacy business about the inside the Beltway groupthink that Obama cares about a legacy in the same way that inside the Beltway people think that all presidents care about a legacy.  I don’t think he does, but they all do.  They think that, “Oh, yeah, he doesn’t want a recession in a second term. He doesn’t want massive new unemployment in a second term.”  Really?  Well, you look at this abomination that he proposed, he wants to go over the cliff.  He wants to go over the cliff.  He desperately wants a second term legacy, but I don’t think people inside the Beltway have the guts to face what kind he really wants.  I don’t think they’re facing up to it yet.

He runs here on a so-called balanced approach. His so-called spending cuts are one-fourth the size of his tax increases, $400 billion, but the spending cuts — and this is par for the course — don’t come until ten or 20 years down the road, which means they don’t come.  Even those future cuts are now off the table.  Geithner did not mention any cuts yesterday.  This is strictly $1.6 trillion in new taxes, no debt limit ever. Well, we set it whenever we want it, and whatever we want to raise it, we do it.  He does not have the votes for it.  He’s out campaigning for it even as we speak.  Now, as I say, if we ever needed any proof what I’ve been saying for the last couple days is true, we got it yesterday with this ridiculous opening bid.  Santa Claus wants to take his sleigh over the fiscal cliff. There’s no question about it now.  None.  Whatsoever.

(playing of song)

RUSH: And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, jolly old St. Obama in his sleigh taking us over the cliff, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, whatever you have it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Obama’s at a Tinkertoy factory, The Rodon Group, in Hatfield. And we’ve got a little excerpt. Now, you know, he sent Geithner up yesterday to present the deal, $1.6 trillion in new taxes on everybody. By the way, “Liberal Democrats…” This is TheHill.com: “Liberal Democrats: Higher Rates for the Wealthy ‘Just the Beginning.'” They want to raise taxes on everybody. So Obama sends Geithner up to demand a massive debt limit increase (it’s up to them how big and when), no spending cuts, and yet in spite of that he’s out campaigning for tax increases. Listen to this. It’s what he told the people at the Tinkertoy factory just moments ago…

OBAMA: The story of generations starting businesses — hiring folks; making sure that if you work hard, you can get ahead — that’s what America’s all about. And that’s at the heart of the plan that I’ve been talking about all year. I wanna reward manufacturers like this one and small businesses that create jobs here in the United States, not overseas.

FOLLOWERS: (applause)

RUSH: Folks, that’s just flat-out BS. I mean, there’s not one aspect of this cliff deal that he’s proposed — there’s not one aspect of any deal that he’s proposed — that is going to reward hard work. He’s gonna punish it with high taxes. He’s not doing anything to create jobs. This is all just amazing. It’s just totally untrue.

Yep, lest we forget – in front of another campaign audience, he said, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”

For the record, I’m with Rush on this. I  think he, and fellow Democratic Socialists (can we please call them what they are?!) want to go over the cliff.

Some of them are even honest enough to say so.

MORE:

Washington Examiner: Obama: GOP holding middle class ‘hostage’:

President Obama took to the road Friday to sell his plan to avoid a looming series of tax increases and spending cuts, using a campaign-style event to accuse Republicans of holding the middle class “hostage” during deadlocked negotiations.

“It’s unacceptable for a handful of Republicans in Congress to hold middle-class tax cuts hostage,” Obama said at a toy manufacturing plant in a suburb of Philadelphia. “Let’s give families all across American the sense of security they deserve this holiday season.”

Obama’s running around telling people that Republicans (hello? the party of low taxes) want to raise taxes on the middle class, while he’s the one who just offered Republicans a ludicrous deal he knows they can’t accept. He and his morally bankrupt fellow travelers actually want to go off the fiscal cliff and are setting the narrative up so Republicans get blamed for it.

What assholes.