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?
