WH says it'll be easier to roll republicans for revenue now: “It’s a sea change,” one official said
____ Speaking Monday afternoon in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building even before the final deal had been struck, Obama celebrated having pushed Republicans to let taxes go up on the wealthiest Americans — a sticking point in nearly two years of on-and-off negotiations — and anticipated objections from his liberal allies, who argued that he was the one who had capitulated by not raising taxes on all income above $250,000.
“Keep in mind that just last month Republicans in Congress said they would never agree to raise tax rates on the wealthiest Americans,” Obama said before an audience described by the White House as “middle class Americans.” “Obviously, the agreement that's currently being discussed would raise those rates and raise them permanently.”
In this view, the talks were a victory for the president in which Republicans signed of on a deal raising $620 billion in revenue — the first major tax increase in two decades — but only cutting about $15 billion in spending. In the terms of the running negotiations, of the $1.2 trillion in revenue Obama called for in the failed grand bargain, at least $500 billion remains on the table for Obama to push for in subsequent deficit talks.
White House officials believe Republicans have crossed the Rubicon on taxes, agreeing to — and indeed, proposed — significant revenue increases for the first time in two decades.
“It’s a sea change,” one senior official told BuzzFeed Monday before the final agreement was struck. “It will inevitably make it easier to get Republicans on board whenever we ask for new revenues, because they’ve already crossed that threshold.”
read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/white-house-claims-victory-in-fiscal-deal
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They voted to lower them. The bill only went up for vote after we went over the cliff and after taxes had technically already been increased. "Sea change" my ass. In fact, it's probably more worrisome that they couldn't have even put it up for vote before midnight, before we went over the fiscal cliff, when in fact it would have been a bill that would have increased taxes. It would have just been for show, the end result would have been the same, but they couldn't even do that most likely because Republicans wouldn't allow it because they would have technically been voting for a tax increase.
It frightens me if the White House really believes that vote last night, the vote to LOWER taxes after we went off the cliff, is a sign the Republicans are going to capitulate when it comes to revenues. You got the Republicans to vote to lower taxes, way to go. What an accomplishment! 
For all intents and purposes, the revenue side of things is done with. It's all going to be about spending cuts and tax cuts from here on out. You might stave off some of the sequestration spending cuts by "reforming" the tax code (i.e., lowering taxes again), but I highly doubt there will be any new additional revenue going forward in the near future. As Republicans have already come out and said, this deal was their compromising.
