Tax Cuts Uber Alles

The WaPo is reporting that later this week in Cleveland, the President will announce a $100 billion program to effectively make the business research and development tax credit from the stimulus permanent.

Under mounting pressure to intensify his focus on the economy ahead of the midterm elections, President Obama will call for a $100 billion business tax credit this week, using a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday to launch what administration officials said was a new policy push.

The business proposal - what one aide called a key part of a limited economic package - would increase and permanently extend research and development tax credits for businesses, rewarding companies that develop new technologies domestically and preserve American jobs.

It would be paid for by closing other corporate tax loopholes, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the policy has not yet been unveiled.

This is not the first time Obama has called for making the credit permanent. But with the economic recovery moving more slowly than the administration had hoped - and Democratic candidates nationwide panicking as the issue threatens their majorities in the House and Senate on Nov. 2 - he is increasingly eager to show he understands the depth of the problem and is trying to act. 

A Clintonian move if there ever was one.  The bad news:  actually helping the American people directly has now gone by the wayside.

The White House has decided to forgo a broad-based payroll-tax holiday at this point, officials have said. That proposal, which had been part of earlier discussions with key congressional officials, would have been an expensive measure, potentially costing hundreds of billions of dollars. It also could have deprived Social Security of needed cash even as Democrats are accusing the GOP of plotting the program's demise on the campaign trail. 

It also would have boosted America's paychecks directly, so there's no way the GOP was going to allow that to pass before an election and the Village has already given the GOP cover on this:  it may "deprive Social Security of needed cash".  That's cockamamie bull, considering that Social Security could have easily taken the hit for a couple of months.

But hey, the big Obama plan to save the Dems?  Tax cuts for businesses.  The GOP is already calling Obama out on this and are declaring that the real message is that tax cuts uber alles should have been the plan all along.  The actual real message is that the Republicans will attack Obama no matter what he does.

Shoulda swung for the fences, instead he lays down a bunt.  Forcing the GOP to vote against a payroill tax holiday that would have directly put money in America's paychecks would have been the wise thing to do.
Instead he's doing what the Republicans want now as a default position and they're pillaging him for it.