Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., negotiated a fiscal cliff deal with Vice President Joe Biden after talks between President Obama and House Republicans stalled, but the White House portrays Obama as the hero.
“At this make or break moment for the middle class, the President achieved a bipartisan solution that keeps income taxes low for the middle class and grows the economy,” the White House fact sheet says.
But this deal was hammered out by McConnell and Biden. “I need a dance partner,” McConnell said, because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., refused to negotiate.
“Over the course of many phone calls, Biden and McConnell cut a bipartisan deal,” National Review Online’s Bob Costa reported. “They spoke several times on Sunday afternoon, and then continued to talk late into the evening, past midnight. They haggled, then haggled some more.”
Even Harry Reid admits that’s what happened. “Talk to Joe Biden and McConnell,” Reid told reporters when asked to provide an update on negotiations over the weekend.
Obama is taking the credit, though. He’s also telling his liberal base that the tax hike is larger than it is. “In 2012, he kept his promise of asking the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans to pay more,” the fact sheet says. According to the Tax Policy Center, though, Republicans pushed Obama off of his 98 percent demand and instead raised taxes only on the top 0.7 percent of Americans.
The Tax Policy Center, of course, is one of Obama’s favorite organizations. Obama cited a study by the TPC — co-authored by one of his former White House aides — to attack Mitt Romney’s tax policy proposals throughout the presidential campaign.
