Fox News is reporting that the

White House confirmed Thursday that President Obama is prepared to veto legislation that would skirt the so-called “fiscal cliff”—a battery of tax hikes and spending cuts—unless Republicans consent to raise taxes on top earners.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama plainly willing to see our economy collapse into another recession every bit as deep as the one from which we’ve not yet recovered solely for the sake of the ego of his getting his way on tax increases.  Obama demands to raise taxes on the 2% of the wealthiest of Americans while leaving taxes alone for the remaining 98% of us.  That’s his number, 2%.  Even though his tax increases will impact far more Americans than that (like anyone with income over $250k—small businesses, for instance, which pass through their incomes to the mom and pop owners/partners for tax payment), let’s take his number for argument’s sake.  What Obama is saying is that he’ll cheerfully blow up our economic future because he can only get 98% of what he claims to want: unchanged taxes for the 98% of the rest of us.

This makes crystalline what Obama really wants: those taxes on that group of Americans which he despises so much.  Obama doesn’t care a whit about the middle class or the poor, whom he could help by calling off his self-imposed gridlock.  He’s only concerned about the rush he’ll get from getting his way and getting over on that unacceptable group of citizens.

But this failure goes far beyond petty ego or the damage done to our economic future; it hits at our ability to protect ourselves from our enemies.  By vetoing any bill that doesn’t have his precious tax increases, even though it would walk us back from the fiscal cliff (just a bit over two months off), he’ll also be vetoing any bill that would end the sequester of an additional nearly half-trillion dollars from our military capacity beyond the already built-in nearly half-trillion dollar cut in spending for defense.  This is having, today, a negative effect on defense-related jobs.  Worse, the veto will put our military’s welfare, training, equipage, and capacity in serious jeopardy.

Here is extortion the Chicago way.  Nice economy you got there….