That’s good strategy, said Erskine Bowles, the Democratic chairman of Obama’s deficit-
reduction commission, who is still trying to build support for a framework to raise taxes, overhaul entitlement programs and rein in the national debt.

“You got two guns: One is the tax cuts, and the other” is the spending cuts, Bowles said in an interview. “Until I can get a framework agreed to, I wouldn’t holster those guns,” he added.

]Democrats threaten to go over ‘fiscal cliff’ if GOP fails to raise taxes
By Lori Montgomery, Published: July 15

Democrats are making increasingly explicit threats about their willingness to let nearly $600 billion worth of tax hikes and spending cuts take effect in January unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher taxes for the nation’s wealthiest households.

Emboldened by signs that GOP resistance to new taxes may be weakening, senior Democrats say they are prepared to weather a fiscal event that could plunge the nation back into recession if the new year arrives without an acceptable compromise.

In a speech Monday, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the Senate’s No. 4 Democrat and the leader of the caucus’s campaign arm, plans to make the clearest case yet for going over what some have called the “fiscal cliff.”

“If we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013,” Murray plans to say, according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post.

If the tax cuts from the George W. Bush era expire and taxes go up for everyone, the debate will be reset, Murray is expected to say. “Every proposal will be a tax-cut proposal,” according to the excerpts, and Republicans would no longer be “boxed in” by their pledge not to raise taxes.

“If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year, are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats’ middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean? I think they know this would be an untenable political position.”

Murray’s address, set to be delivered at the Brookings Institution, is meant to influence both the Nov. 6 election and the lame-duck legislative session in November and December, when the fiscal cliff will be at hand and the fight over taxes will be in full throttle. Regardless of the election’s outcome, President Obama and the current Congress will be in office for the session.

The speech comes less than a week after Obama assured Hill Democrats during a White House meeting that he would veto any attempt to maintain the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 a year, according to several people present. It also echoes the dismissive response by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) to Republicans seeking to undo scheduled reductions in Pentagon spending that even Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has said would be “devastating” to national security.

During the White House meeting, Obama never directly addressed whether he is prepared to let the new year arrive without taking action to avoid the cliff. According to the excerpts, Murray will say Monday that she hopes an agreement can be reached before then: “Democrats are willing to compromise. We just need a partner.”

Still, Democratic lawmakers emerged from the meeting invigorated for the year-end battle to preserve the Bush tax cuts solely for the middle class.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has lambasted the Democrats’ position as an “outrageous ultimatum.”

“At a moment when the American people are reeling from the slowest recovery in modern times . . . and just five months away from the economic body blow that will result if tax rates spike, as scheduled, on January 1st, the president’s solution is to take more money away from the very business folks we are counting on to create the jobs that we need,” McConnell said in a speech Thursday on the Senate floor. “Naturally, Republicans oppose this. The way we see it, nobody should see an income tax hike right now.”

Quoted:
Dupe?




http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1343795_Democrats_threaten_to_go_over__fiscal_cliff__if_GOP_fails_to_raise_taxes.html

Quoted:
I thought they muzzled Patty pretty well for the last few years. I guess the desire to appear 'mainstream' has faded and now the dems figure that they can energize the base by acting like looney - tunes again.