In the immediate sense, Obama, of course. That’s why he’s not genuinely negotiating to avoid the cliff, having proffered nothing for days. He has yet to put forth any meaningful spending reductions–relying instead on so-called cuts (merely cuts in the rate of growth, not actual cuts) that have already taken place.
No, Obama plans to milk a fall off the cliff for all it’s worth. He will blame Republicans for being concerned only with the “mega wealthy,” and say that it was their intransigence that caused the free fall. He’ll say that in spite of the fact that the Republican leadership was poised to betray its base and agree to counterproductive tax increases in order to avert the cliff.
But Obama is much better at the blame game. He has spent four years laying the groundwork for this. Republicans, he repeats ad nauseum, want to balance the budget on the backs of parents of children with disabilities in order to protect millionaires and billionaires. They take the American people hostage to achieve their ends. Number two Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer played right along, saying the Republicans are like people who take their own child hostage and threaten to shoot them if they don’t get what they want. Seriously?
Read the rest at Human Events.
