The Democrats at least had one thing that was politically popular: tax hikes on those who make more than $250,000 a year. Now they've done it, or at least, gone most of the way there: taxes rise on incomes above $450,000 ($400,000 for singles), while the Bush tax cuts are permanently extended for everyone else. Sure, that means we're raising taxes on only about one half of one percent of the population instead of 2 percent, but that half a percentage point contains most of the obscenely rich people, while exempting the professional class that contains a lot of Democratic voters in high-tax, high income blue states.
Yet Democrats and liberal pundits seem distinctly unhappy. Partly they're just mad that Obama made concessions at all; apparently, they were expecting that they wouldn't have to, not on anything significant. But I wonder if there isn't something else to it. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for: you might get it. And then what do you do for an encore?
