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My first choice was your preferred course, which was to extend them for everyone making $250,000 or less, but that is off the table with the Republicans taking the House.
The Republicans have vowed not to compromise, and to do everything in their power to send you home in 2012.
They will not be reasonable.
They will oppose any restoration of any Clinton-era tax rates.
A two-year extension of the existing rates is bad politics and bad policy. Bad politics because you will be seen as knuckling under to pressure and, frankly, unoriginal. You were not elected to be a placeholder. Bad policy because government revenue as a percent of GDP is at historically low levels and there is no evidence at all that an increase in the top rate will trickle down and hurt the rest of us. The share of wealth going to the top 1% has tripled in the last 30 years. You know they have this minor bit of medicine coming to them.
The debt commission is going to recommend cutbacks in entitlements, raising the retirement age and other belt-tightening measures. Your response can not be to do nothing to raise revenue and take some of the pressure off the budget.
Make it clear you are prepared to let the tax cuts expire. Stand up to these guys. You'll have the whole world screaming at you, but, eventually, you will force the Republicans to knuckle under. Go into campaign mode and make it clear that the only thing standing in the way of continuing the present tax structure for 99% of the American people is the Republican House.
Excuse me, sir, but you need to engage these nihilists in a big fucking messy fight on Democratic Party principles, and there is no better issue than this.
Respectfully,
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