President Obama is expected to veer even further to the left when he delivers his budget on Monday. Obama’s already had to drop a plan to tax college savings accounts. Now, he is “pledging fresh tax hikes on banks and the rich to pay for free community college and other goodies.” He also wants to blast through budget caps put in place in 2011. Politico,
It’s a progressive’s dream version of Obama, untethered from earlier centrist leanings and flirtations with “grand bargains” with Republicans on entitlement reform. But the approach also carries significant risks, analysts and some Democrats say.
Obama could wind up alienating moderate swing voters who still tend to worry about debt and deficits, generally oppose higher taxes and fear the economy the president is now celebrating is not really all that great. And the president could wind up bequeathing to nominee-in-waiting Hillary Clinton a Democratic Party that is oriented well to the left of her traditional comfort zone, making an eventual general election campaign more challenging…
“Obama’s budget and his second-term lurch to the left presents not just headaches for his own lame duck agenda but also for Hillary’s 2016 prospects,” said Kirsten Kukowski, national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “No wonder the message ahead of the Democrat retreat is that their party doesn’t have a message.”
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