( - promoted by Diane G)
First, understand that President Obama doesn't even need to participate in negotiations over extending the Bush tax breaks, because he can just let them expire and achieve a big progressive victory by restoring Clinton-era taxation on the highest earning taxpayers. But, call it Post-Election Obama Retreat I, or more of the same, now Obama aides tell Mike Allen this morning that, for families with $250K to $1 million annual income, they hope to make permanent the Bush tax breaks (which cut top earners' income taxes from 36% from 39% (except for capital gains income, which is taxed at only 15%!)). The plan is to re-define 'middle class' up, way up:
An income of $250,000 a year "is dead as the dividing line" for distinguishing the middle class in extending the Bush tax cuts, the centerpiece issue of the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress, Democratic aides have said.
Instead, negotiations will begin around a threshold of $500,000 or $1 million, the aides said.
President Barack Obama said this week that he would make a new push to protect the middle class from the tax cuts' scheduled expiration at the end of this year.
The new figures means a broader swath of Americans would be considered "middle class" during the negotiations.
We got the Cat Food (Debt) Commission bipartisanly scheming to chop into Social Security. We got 9.6% official unemployment, 17.1% real unemployment, record inequality that's getting rapidly worse, and record mortgage defaults. But hey, don't worry, we got President Hope looking out for the $250K to $1 million income earners!
Here were the income dividing lines family/household income brackets in 2007, the latest I can find clear data for (this PDF at p. 7): Top 1%: over $398,900; Top 5%: over $155,400; Top 10%: over $109,600. Looking at that, Obama aides have magically decided that 'middle class' now extends all the way to the edge of the top 0.5%? What planet, actually I know what planet they live on, Planet Campaign Donations.
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