Taxing the rich Obama style

So President Obama has taken Warren Buffett at his word and announced plans to tax people like him a lot more in order to plug the ever widening hole in America’s finances.

The president is clearly hoping that the Republicans, despite their ideological opposition to any tax increases, could not even conceive of vetoing something which only dents the pockets of the very rich and saves America Inc. from further economic decline.

As Obama put it in the Rose Garden earlier: “This is not class war. It is math.”

His calculations may be right. The Republicans discovered in the summer just how unpopular they were, when they returned to their congressional districts to face the music.

As Bill Keller put it in the New York Times today. “They have the popularity ratings of bedbugs.” The public hated the way they haggled and procrastinated over raising the debt ceiling, apparently more interested in spoiling the presidency than in saving the country.

The White House strategy for getting Obama re-elected has been obvious for some time. Bash the Republicans for being on the side of the rich. Remind the electorate that any election is a choice between candidates and not just a referendum on the incumbent. Increasingly you will hear the line, “even if you are disappointed by me, do you really want the country run by someone like Rick Perry or Mitt Romney?”

This will become a lot easier once we know … in about 10 months from now … who will actually run against Obama. But if you liked the 2008 election of hope and change, get ready for fear and loathing 2012. It may be the only way the Democrats can get their disgruntled and disheartened base off the sofa. And, depending on how bad the economy looks in a year from now, it may not be enough.

Follow @mattfrei on Twitter.