Noonan: Why Can't Obama Sit Down, Talk, Deal?

An excerpt from Peggy Noonan's fine column in the Wall Street Journal about President Obama, the GOP and the growing debt crisis:

You watch and wonder: Why does it always have to be cliffs with this president? Why is it always a high-stakes battle? Why doesn't he shrewdly re-enact Ronald Reagan, meeting, arguing and negotiating in good faith with Speaker Tip O'Neill, who respected very little of what the president stood for and yet, at the end of the day and with the country in mind, could shake hands and get it done? Why is there never a sense with Mr. Obama that he understands the other guys' real position? . . .
Here's just one thing they should be discussing. Mr. Obama wants to raise tax rates on those earning $250,000 or more, as we know, on the assumption that they are "the rich." But if you are a man with a wife and two kids making that salary and living in Westfield, N.J., in no way do you experience yourself to be rich, because you're not. You pay federal payroll and income taxes, state income and sales taxes and local property taxes, and after the mortgage, food and commuting costs you don't have much to spare.
Tighten the squeeze on that couple, and they'll change how they live. They'll stop sending the struggling son to a neighborhood tutor, they'll stop going out to dinner once a week, they'll cut off the baby sitter, fire the guy who once a month does yard work, and hold back on new clothes. Also the guy will peruse employment ads in Florida and Texas, potentially removing from blue-state New Jersey his heartening, taxpaying presence.
It really is worth a discussion, isn't it? A closer look at the numbers? Shared thoughts on how Americans really live?

Click here for the full column.