[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here. Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]
Update: I didn’t see the Instalink until now, but thanks.
I am going to be travelling today, so there will be no blogging from me for most of the day, but I wanted to leave ya’ll a topic of discussion. Yesterday Glenn Reynolds made some comments that I considered intriguing, where he suggested two ways Republican leaders could bargain with the president on the debt, given that the President seems bound and determined to raise taxes.
The first was specific tax hikes that had a political punch. For instance this was written about him in Politico (but no linky for IP bullies):
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit proposed a 50 percent surtax on the post-administration private sector incomes of top government officials and excise taxes on movie tickets, DVDs and digital music downloads.
“Then let Hollywood scream about how the tax increase would destroy American jobs,” he wrote.
He also aired this suggestion: “I want money taken from any multigenerational family trust to be taxed as ordinary income. Twice that rate if a family member has ever been a Senator or Congressman.”
And this: “How about a windfall-profits tax for trial lawyers?”
Reynolds also says, “The possibilities for mischief are endless if the GOP will just think outside of the Grover Norquist box. . .”
So that is one approach—propose taxes that make mischief with the Democrats. Another is to offer a bargain that Obama would have a hard time swallowing. From a reader at insty:
If I were Boehner, I’d offer a full repeal of all Bush era tax cuts in return for repeal of Obamacare.
Then – after Obama nixed the deal, I’d spend the next 100 interviews talking about the evilness of Obamacare.
Even if Obama approved of the deal (fat chance), it would be a win for liberty.
So let me suggest you take this thread as a chance to make your own suggestions. What mischievous tax proposals might you like? Or… what crap sandwich would you require Obama to eat in order to get the “job killing taxes” Obama so desperately wants (despite his prior statement that it is a bad idea to raise taxes in an recession)?
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
