In an article in the Washington Post today, one primarily about the contentious split between Senator Chuck Schumer (yeah, that Chuck Schumer, hardly a leading progressive in the Senate) and President Obama regarding the tax deal Obama cut with the Republicans (Schumer hates it, btw) is this interesting tidbit buried in the sixth paragraph. I think it says a lot about how our President still doesn’t “get it” when it comes to “compromising” with the GOP:
Obama views the fate of the Bush breaks as chiefly an economic question, and to him, the answer is clear: The sputtering recovery can’t withstand any tax increases. The White House also hopes cutting a deal with Republicans will help to clear away some GOP opposition to additional stimulus spending the president wants to enact and to the ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
Schumer took a different view. Middle-class independent voters abandoned Democrats in droves last month, and Schumer, who just won a third term, wanted to portray the GOP as the party of millionaires and billionaires.
The tax breaks are a political issue as much as they are an economic one. Schumer understands that. No one wants tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires except — the ultra rich. Why President Obama doesn’t get it is beyond me. Indeed, the deal he struck with Republicans is actually worse for people who make under $100,000 a year than his original plan as this diary by 8ackgr0und N015e at Daily Kos demonstrates.
Here’s the clincher. Today the Post published a new graphic showing “the big winners” in this deal. It’s clear when you compare the original Democratic proposal to the original Republican proposal, which one is closest to where the current solution ends up. I think this confirms what I have been saying.
Here’s the graph in question:
But what is worse is that Obama thinks caving (yes, caving) to the Republicans now will help him win their support for all the other stuff he wants to accomplish next year. Let’s review the main point members of Obama’s staff made to Shailagh Murray as to why the current tax deal is a good idea:
The White House also hopes cutting a deal with Republicans will help to clear away some GOP opposition to additional stimulus spending the president wants to enact and to the ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
Uh, Mr. President, what part of “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president” don’t you understand. Indeed, when have the Republicans (with the occasional exception of the Maine Twins) ever voted for anything the President really wanted when the Dems had control of both the Senate and the House?
Hell, just yesterday the Senate Republicans defeated a cloture vote on repealing the military’s policy on “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” They also scuttled a bill to extend benefits to the 911 responders suffering severe health problems:
Senate Republicans on Thursday derailed a bill to aid people who got sick after exposure to dust from the World Trade Center’s collapse in the Sept. 11 attack. […]
Fifty-seven Democrats voted for the bill and 41 Republicans opposed it. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, switched his vote to ‘no’ at the last moment, a parliamentary move that allows him to bring the measure up again for a vote.
President Obama, “hoping” the opposition party, which just won control of the House and made significant gains in the Senate, is suddenly going to accede to your “bipartisan” requests on passing the START treaty and passing a new stimulus bill, based on their past record of obstructing everything you propose is a pipe dream, at best. They will always either oppose you, or “hold America hostage” if you don’t continue the Bush tax cuts for the rich, or worse, lower those tax cuts even more.
All you have done is indicated to the GOP leadership that you will rollover for them whenever they want. What is worse, as the tax cuts for the rich continue to NOT stimulate the economy and increase the deficit, who do you think will get the blame for rising unemployment and a lack of job creation that is inevitable over the next two years as Republicans continue to obstruct anything that might create jobs?
Here’s a hint: It won’t be the Republicans. They will continue to hammer away on the deficit, and how your heath care reform bill is bankrupting America and that the only way it it can be repealed and more taxes cut passed to save the economy will be to make you a one term President. The Republicans control the media. They will have vast sums of corporate contributions available to them to defeat you and gain control of the Senate in 2012. And they will have a simple message to push: Everything that’s wrong in this country is your fault.
It won’t matter that this message is a lie and distorts the reality that Republican obstructionism is the primary reason our economy is not creating jobs. They will just keep doing what they do until you stand up to them and say enough is enough. Unlike George Bush in 2004, you won’t have the “War on Terror” as a fallback to save your electoral chances. They will portray you as weak and ineffectual and incompetent, the second coming of Jimmy Carter as it were.
And trust me, a Republican as President in 2012 with a Republican controlled Congress, combined with the worst economy the nation has known since the Great Depression, will do far more damage than any of us can imagine. Democrats in the Senate and the House are wiling to fight the Republicans on the unfairness of this deal. Just listen to Claire McCaskill, whose seat is in danger in 2012, but who knows that giving the Republicans what they want and allowing them to hold these America hostage year after year over these tax cuts for the ultra-rich is a bad idea:
Now the focus is on next year, and separate bills to raise taxes on the wealthy as part of a broader deficit-reduction push. “This party should not be afraid of this debate,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a Schumer ally who faces reelection in 2012. “The American people are on our side.”
The good Senator from Missouri is right: this is a fight Democrats can win. So why aren’t you fighting it?
Because nothing in this country has ever been done without compromise, and being a purist will never get you anywhere. Weren’t you listening to his attack earlier this week?
I’m not a purist. Obama has shown a habit for believeing he can find common ground with today;s GOP when time after time he has been proven wrong. Plus, every negotiation begins the same way — he gives awy half the store before he even begins.
Plus, every negotiation begins the same way — he gives awy half the store before he even begins.
Bingo, did not Senator Graham make that point in the cilmate bill that President had offered off shore drilling and more nuke plants up so easily that Graham had nothing to give Republican Senators for their votes. He did similar in stimulus and health care debate. Most of the time it is him giving up stuff to please corporate whore dems but its always at the expense of liberals who want the best policy.
How can his supporters and opponents see this but him or his advisors can not? He treats every big time deal like its Harvard Review class and everyone has great ideas, just have to find a sweet spot between them all. No, the GOP/Teabaggers are insane and do not give a shit about American population, especially working people and minorities.
The filibuster is to blame but the president should for once PRETEND he wants something that he knows will not get through Congress, throw it out for the corporate aholes so they can feel good about themselves, have liberals bitch still that they wanted the liberal policy which would give cover to GOP and conservadems satisfaction that liberals are still pissed so they might support it. Everyone wins and the liberal outrage is used for good. The GOP and Conservadems are played.
I completely agree. My post was pure snark at Obama’s beliefs which I think are counterproductive and bad for the country for reasons you stated.
Sorry,
My snarkometer is low these days. Mea culpa.
It’s to late to fight this. Obama should have taken this up months ago before the 31st deadline is on top of us. Now we risk the tax cuts ending for erveryone (which isn’t a bad thing), no unemployment extension etc. Maybe he planned it this way to back dems into a corner. In any case, this will bite him in the ass for the next two years. The talking points will be that Obama ran up the deficit. The rethugs will flip this upside down and blame Obama et al for all of this.
I mean, we’re screwed now. The thugs know they can get whatever they want. It is sickening.
To be fair to Obama, he actually DID push this months ago. It was the House that decided they wanted to wait until after the elections to bring this issue up. I seem to recall some heated leaks that Pelosi was trying to push for a vote on just the middle class tax cuts without the upper class tax cuts and Steny Hoyer was pleading with her to not make the Blue Dogs have that vote before the election.
It was a stupid move on Hoyer’s part and Pelosi’s part. The Blue Dogs who lost were always going to lose – who knows, a good solid bit of true populism might actually have helped them a bit.
Obama’s made a lot of missteps during his time in office, but he DID try to push this sooner. He deferred to the Congress on it (which is how he governs – and how he told us he would govern when he ran for the office) and they did the wrong thing. Now he’s doing the wrong thing, but it’s mostly because he’s been backed into a position where nothing he can do will be the right thing and he’s attempting to choose the thing that will hurt him least politically. I think he’s making the wrong choice, but he wouldn’t have to even be bothering with it if the Congress had taken the openings he’d been trying to give them in August and September.
Actually, Obama just significantly improved his chances for re-election.
Anyone who actually studies the causal effects of federal budget deficits realizes that the dominant factor in reducing deficits is neither spending nor tax rates, but…economic growth! The economy will begin to grow again, both unemployment and the federal budget deficit will come down, and Obama will be a hero. Progressives, angry as they may be, aren’t going to vote for anyone else, and he will win back a significant portion of the independent voters for finally getting results.
As a radical right-winger, I tip my hat to him–it was a smart move. He’ll be that much harder to beat in 2012.
Of course, the lower tax rates are not just a smart economic move, but also the morally superior course of action, as individuals should be allowed to keep as much of the money they earn as possible!
you should read krugman. Moody’s own analysis says that growth will happen in 2011 and fall off again in 2012 – just in time for the re-election campaign. Political science studies say that growth during the election year is more important than growth in previous years when it comes voting time.
Even as a political re-election strategy, this is stupid.
Really? Are you going to send him money? Are you going to call people and ask them to vote for him?
I think he’s a dead duck, not just a lame duck. He will not get out the youth vote like in 2008. He continues to promote the job killing H-1B and J-1 visas, he does nothing for college kids with huge debts, and his “pragmatic” suck-ups to McConnell have killed enthusiasm.
When the next round of approval ratings come out, I believe that his ratings will drop.
Demostrating that, yet again, conservative wacks have no idea what is actually going on, your delusion that Obama is more electable is simply wrong:
“The biggest reason for Obama’s fall: a sharp drop in approval among Democrats and liberals, apparently unhappy with his moves toward the center since he led the party to landslide losses in November’s midterm elections. At the same time, he’s gained nothing among independents.”
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/10/105105/poll-obamas-losing-support-romney.html#ixzz17okrsgLt
Even independents look for someone who has actual beliefs and convictions. Obama has neither. He is simply looking for the closest Republican to surrender to.
http://agonist.org/dojoofdemocracy
Well said.
Thanks for putting up the comparison chart. Note that that is the total package, not just the tax cut extensions.
I am not a fucking purist. I am a pragmatist. I have NEVER under any circumstances believed that Obama was a progressive, and no one who is sentient could possibly believe that.
What I want and what many want is NOT “pure” Democratic policy. What we want is EFFECTIVE use of power of the POTUS to get SOMETHING that Democrats like. I don’t want “purist” stuff. I want him to show that he is COMPTETENT at using the power of the POTUS to do ANYTHING.
And so far I haven’t seen it. It’s one craven capitulation after another, and each one is accompanied by some bullshit crap about how he HAD to give in, while he never even tried to bargain.
He’s a really crappy negotiator, just really crappy. And yet, supposedly, while in the Illinois Legislature, he played a lot of poker. He appears to have learned nothing from the poker, or he lost a boatload of money, because he has shown NOTHING of the ability of a good card player.
“The tax breaks are a political issue as much as they are an economic one. Schumer understands that. No one wants tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires except — the ultra rich. Why President Obama doesn’t get it is beyond me”
That is the whole thing in a nutshell. I don’t get it either.
The American people are on your side right up until their reduced paycheck arrives!