Walter Mondale’s old speechwriter Charles Krauthammer basically gets what Obama is up to, even if he casts everything in his typically hyper-partisan way.
Upon losing the House in 2010, the leveler took cover for the next two years. He wasn’t going to advance his real agenda through the Republican House anyway, and he needed to win reelection.
Now he’s won. The old Obama is back. He must not be underestimated. He has deftly leveraged his class-war-themed election victory (a) to secure a source of funding (albeit still small) for the bloated welfare state, (b) to carry out an admirably candid bit of income redistribution and (c) to fracture the one remaining institutional obstacle to the rest of his ideological agenda.
Not bad for two months’ work.
It seems strange to cast this as some sinister and hidden plot. Democrats do not want to dismantle the New Deal, and it must be financed. From that perspective, the Republicans actually didn’t do too badly in the fiscal cliff negotiations. Obama only received half of the revenues he was seeking, and what he was seeking was grossly inadequate to finance the continued upkeep of our New Deal and Great Society programs. The Beast is still being starved.
Yet, Krauthammer is correct about what Obama accomplished. He’s right that the American people are behind Obama and that Obama is only doing what he said he would do during the campaign…which he won. He’s also wrong to focus so heavily on tax rates and revenues. Most of Obama’s upcoming agenda has nothing to do with tax rates and revenues. He wants comprehensive immigration reform and an assault weapons ban and infrastructure spending and education reform and work on climate change. Yes, tax reform in on the agenda, too, but that is only one part of what Obama hopes to accomplish. Fracturing the “one remaining institutional obstacle to the rest of his ideological agenda” was an absolute prerequisite for him if he is going to get anything done. That was the point I made repeatedly in the run-up to the fiscal cliff. It is why I saw a deal passed with mostly Democratic votes (in the House) to be worth much more than it might look like on paper. That fracture must be maintained.
So after “basking in the glow,” Republicans angry and ever more committed to trash spending, Obama has to maintain this fracture? Seems like a tough job, especially for this moderate 1980s Republican, as he so described himself recently. If he’s willing to make first offers on cutting Social Security and Medicare, I think Republicans are going to play it out a little better this time.
Seems like a tough job, especially for this moderate 1980s Republican, as he so described himself recently.
How do you figure? The modern Republican Party is strongly opposed to what the moderate members of their party believed in the 1980s. There probably isn’t a single member of the House Republican caucus who would have counted as a moderate in the 1980s.
Charles Krauthammer isn’t stupid; he’s dishonest.
When he writes a column describing, for instance, Mitt Romney’s campaign trip to Europe and Israel as “triumphant,” he is deluded; he’s lying.
As this column shows, he has an insightful mind that is perfectly capable of understanding the truth – unlike may of the “unskewed” conservative commentators today.
Right, he isn’t deluded. He’s a brawler.
Re:
Looked to me as if the House Democrats were rushed into voting Yes because they were told to (or because the president couldn’t suffer a loss) more than anything. Did they have any input in the deal? None whatsoever. It’s absurd to posit that they were comfortable with the final legislation. Even Senate Democrats were pissed that Biden swooped in to preempt Reid. Does anybody think the 76-member Congressional Progressive Caucus was happy with the bill?
“On paper” the deal was not a good one. I’m not sure that it matters all that much if Democrats were needed to get it through the House. The circumstances surrounding that event are unlikely to come about again. Boehner is the Speaker. House Republicans are, if anything, more intransigent than ever.
Sixteen Dems voted against it.
5 Progressives: Beccera, Blumenauer, DeFazio, DeLauro, Moran.
10 Blue Dogs (but, interestingly, none of the retiring/defeated members).
1 Dem who is neither a progressive of a Blue Dog.
In the Senate, the only Progressive to vote against it was Harkin.
Sherrod Brown and Brian Schatz and Bernie Sanders and Al Franken and Jeff Merkley all voted for it.
Well, I see Sanders is a fraud. The last illusion has been shattered.
or maybe he prefers protecting the middle & lower class over making a political point.
A political point? When someone says that the Bush tax cuts must go and then votes for them, that’s a political point? Starving the government serves the middle and lower class?
So much of the White House proclamation of “victory” is about getting short term benefits (e.g. UI) at the cost of long term problems (tax revenue).
They care about the presently unemployed but don’t have much interest in problems that will face the unemployed a decade ahead (when there will be little or no money for UI).
And no work history or SS credit or individual savings.
Sanders isn’t a fraud. What’s he got to look out for? When he retires he has no other job to gain because he’s old; he’s been an independent since he first entered politics in the 1970’s…he never ran as a D even then; he has no worry of primary challenges; and he lives in VT.
It doesn’t really refute Quiddity’s point, considering Reid himself called it a bad deal.
His word
Well, I see Sanders is a fraud.
Or you’re nuts.
I know where I’m putting my money, and it’s not on “Bernie Sanders is a sellout.”
So the Booman position is that only votes against the bill are a measure of displeasure with the bill? And that there was no pressure from Pelosi or the White House on much of the Progressive Caucus?
I don’t believe that. I know for a fact that many Senate Democrats were unhappy at how this played out. Yet, according to the “how they voted” standard, they had no objections.
I didn’t know Krauthammer once worked for Mondale. Damn.
It’s not strange when you consider right-wing projection.
My mind boggles. I stopped reading Krauthammer long ago (and I still read Buckley, mostly in admiration of his literary skill) he was such a right-wing Putz.
if the GOP were HONEST and ran on what they intend to do, they’d lost profusely.
like I said elsewhere,
the President needs to say that the GOP needs to run on the cuts they want…
if they win, he’ll see them in 2014.
Well, you could say the same for Durbin and Obama.
Absolutely. They’re both well to the left of the median voter, probably too far to win if they ran on their actual preferences.
“I’m evolving on gay marriage.” Yeah, sure you are – you supported it in the 90s, stopped supporting it, and then “evolved” back to your old position. Uh huh.
I take issue: How can anyone (especially someone who worked with Mondale) say the welfare system is bloated when a full 1/5th, or 6,015,164 American families try to live on less than 11,000 dollars!
I wonder what Krauthammer’s income tax bracket is?
High enough it just went up.
I don’t see much fracturing. Looks more like the GOP decided to pull together.
based on what? their little show yesterday shows there’s at least some stress on that caucus