OK, OK, OK.  I am so tired of hearing the mantra of this President and Liberal politicians.  “Tax the rich”, make the filthy bastards pay their “fair share”.  President Obama continued the call to class warfare in his “budget” speech last week.  We can’t afford to give continued tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, he said.  This is clearly the talking point of choice for Progressives, and it needs to be removed from their arsenal of rhetorical weapons.  Might I humbly suggest a tactic to House Speaker Boehner and others in Republican leadership?

During my years as a manager in various companies, I learned an important negotiating rule.  When a new policy, program or regulation meets a laundry list of reasons why it can’t be implemented, eliminate the objections one by one until nothing remains.  In the case of our ongoing budget battle, the tax argument is only one objection, and it really does need to be removed from the debate.

I would suggest that in return for everything we want in spending cuts, Boehner and company agree to rescind the Bush tax cuts for Americans with incomes over $1 million a year.  They would offer this of course knowing full well that those cuts could be reinstated in 2013 after winning the Presidency and control of the Senate.

This plan would yield several benefits.  First and foremost, it removes an inflammatory Progressive talking point that resonates with many Americans.  It will, undeniably help reduce the deficit a bit, and it gives our side the appearance of negotiating in good faith with a huge bargaining chip.  We fiscal conservatives got hoodwinked a bit on the 2011 budget deal.  It’s time to acknowledge that we are playing with the big boys, and negotiate in earnest.

As distasteful as this concession is to me, I can’t believe that a year of tax increase would do much damage to anyone in this income bracket.  I don’t know, maybe this is just too simple to have occurred to the great political minds in Washington.  Or, maybe there is some legitimate procedural issue that would keep it from being effective.  If not, and we barrow a page from the Progressive play book that says “the ends justifies the means”, this might be well worth the effort.

Originally posted on 04/16/2011 at ConservativeCompass.com