The Grapes of Wrath Democrats

Count me as surprised and wrong on the shape of the Obama-McConnell tax deal. Given the certainty that any tax-rate extensions would be temporary, I thought they'd be either for three years or one year. I thought the Obama campaign would prefer to run without having to re-fight the same tax-rate battle. Totally wrong. Barack Obama wants this fight. A school of thought on the tax deal argues that its elements, particularly the 100% expensing deduction for next year, will shift enough economic activity into 2011 to create an uptick in growth large enough to pull some guilt-ridden independent voters back into Mr. Obama's column. Could happen. You might even mark Mr. Obama as the 2012 favorite—if, like Bill Clinton in 1994, he stiffs his party's left and embraces the new political center whose blueprint was just drawn for him by his own Bowles-Simpson deficit commission.

Read at Wall Street Journal

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