A lesson about bipartisanship | Michael Tomasky

Ezra Klein has an interesting post about the new book by heterodox conservative Bruce Bartlett, who believes that the GOP has to get serious about raising some taxes to deal with the crisis at hand. Klein quotes Bartlett as writing:

When the crunch comes and the need for a major increase in revenue becomes overwhelming, I expect that Republicans will refuse to participate in the process. If Democrats have to raise taxes with no bipartisan support, then they will have no choice but to cater to the demand of their party's most liberal wing. This will mean higher rates on businesses and entrepreneurs, and soak-the-rich policies that would make Franklin D. Roosevelt blush.

You see this in health-care reform: Harry Reid is looking at a payroll tax hike on the rich, and the House is looking at a straight surtax on the rich paired with a new mandate on employers. But if five Senate Republicans and 15 House Republicans had been willing to trade their votes in exchange for funding mechanisms they preferred (a tax on employer-sponsored health-care plans, for instance), Baucus, backed by Reid and the White House, would have rushed to write it into the bill, and there'd be nothing the AFL-CIO could do to stop it.

Continue reading...