When a Bad Idea Is a Bad Idea

Ezra thinks the “fiscal cliff” compromise will have the tax rates for the wealthy going up some, but not all the way to the pre-Bush 39.6 percent. He also thinks the Dems will allow the Medicare eligibility age to go up to 57 67, as a sop to the Republicans.

Krugman

I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that this is just a case of creeping Broderism, that it’s a VSP fantasy about how we’re going to resolve this in a bipartisan way. Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay.

Yeah, these bad ideas are bad ideas. As far as the tax rates are concerned, seems to me the Dems have the Grey Old Peckers by their boy parts, and we’ve still got more than three weeks to the cliff.

And Ezra himself explains why raising Medicare tax rates is a bad idea:

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(During the recent election campaign, Republicans tried to scare the old folks into voting for Romney by shrieking that Obama was cutting Medicare. And of course, Republicans wanted to win that election so they could cut Medicare.)

Why compromise on Medicare? The thinking seems to be that while it’s a bad idea, and would create real hardship for some folks, the pain would be narrowly spread and the deal would have little effect on the economy. But if they do this, the Dems had better get something really fat and juicy in return. And nothing fat and juicy enough is coming to mind.