The New Republic

It's as much about how we got here as what is on the table. If this was the result of a real effort by Obama and Reid to use taxes on wealthy people (whether its $250,000 or $1,000,000) where there was some real hard bargaining (rather than giveaways like the tossing of candy like a federal pay freeze to Republican children) there would not be the outcry you see now. But Obama runs from a fights: he kicks his friends in the butt when they call him on his promises, and his failure to fight for them.. He thinks that people who are passionate about ideas are obstructionist jerks. He has sent a message that he is ready to throw his friends overboard so he can vacation in the Vineyard in August. I am am going to have a real hard time getting out of bed to vote on November 6, 2012, if he's the best choice I have.

- SFergessen

December 10, 2010 at 8:19am

I think Solomon should ask for his sword and threaten to cut the baby in half so that the instincts of the party actually concerned with the country and not just itself [as in a Republican need for Citizens United campaign money from the wealthy] would come forth and save the country [i.e. unemployment benefits to protect geographic segments of the economy from a further downward slide]. But what if Solomon himself is worried about re-election?

- Nusholtz

December 10, 2010 at 9:25am

"He has sent a message that he is ready to throw his friends overboard so he can vacation in the Vineyard in August." That is a ridiculously cheap and ignorant shot. "I am am going to have a real hard time getting out of bed to vote on November 6, 2012, if he's the best choice I have." I am certain that Republicans will laugh all the way to their tax-free bank accounts. Seriously - with this attitude, Democrats deserve to lose.

- icarusr

December 10, 2010 at 9:35am

- The reaction of House Democrats is the latest example that Barack Obama gets most of what he wants, most of the time, with or without the help of those he chooses to join with him. The example people forgot is when the Somali pirates grabbed that ship. Everyone was screaming for a couple days while he'd already hooked up their tiny boat to a Navy ship, he dispatched SEALS and gave them an order. (Notice how the definition of hostage changed?) When the goofballs popped their heads out of the life boat they were dead. He'd already directed the snipers the drop them. [The End] I've been keeping score, he's still ahead.

- michaelg

December 10, 2010 at 9:39am

Wow, one fatuous comment from the left and the abusr practically has Barack Obama unemployed after 2012. Fox News Alert: there is a brilliant political analyst here whom you could use.

- liberal reformer

December 10, 2010 at 10:44am

lib ref, you're really reading far too much into things, in your inevitable and annoying focus on icarusr. it was a fatuous and stupid comment. michaelg has it about right. and people like SFergessen make me really angry that I can't vote.

- miceelf

December 10, 2010 at 10:49am

I don't see how the spectacle of San Francisco Liberal Nancy Pelosi's Liberal House Democrats attacking the President over his bipartisan tax compromise does anything but help him politically.

- subterran

December 10, 2010 at 10:57am

I do believe that Strassel stole her argument from Clive Crook, http://bit.ly/e9EXDX : Good Lord. One minute, he's reassuring progressives. We are good and they are evil. It's victims and hostage-takers, no less. Just be patient, our time will come, and accounts with the enemy will be settled. Next minute, he's rebuking the same progressives. Spare me your sanctimonious purism. It's un-American. We have good-faith differences of opinion. "This country was founded on compromise."

- adsprung

December 10, 2010 at 12:51pm

I keep saying this but imo one of the reasons for the conservative confusion is that the GOP has done exactly what the Teabag Front galloped to the polls last month to prevent: a deal with the Obama White House. The Republicans have gotten together with the socialist muslim terrorist-friendly imposter from Kenya and made an arrangement that has given him some of the things he wants too. So, confusion. And wait a month or two until the day the base is baffled as to why this Obama guy is still delivering a State of the Union address.

- ironyroad

December 10, 2010 at 2:11pm

The Dems showed their true colors when they voted yesterday to kill extended unemployment benefits, payroll tax cuts, the Earned Income credit, etc--items which amount to more money and far more stimulus than ditching top-bracket tax cuts. They would sacrifice struggling workers in order to punish "the rich". I am so glad that these fatuous, narcissistic morons are out in January, and hope Obama learns this time, as he should have already done, that his worst enemies are in the left wing of his own party. He should work with the incoming Republican Congress to reform entitlements and the tax code, throwing his left-wing "friends" under the bus at every opportunity. Good for the country, good for his re-election prospects.

- Robert Powell

December 10, 2010 at 2:33pm

Hurray for Obama!

- paskunac

December 11, 2010 at 7:34am

It's true that the scrambling by the GOP is a little bit gratifying. The party that's gotten so successful on a total lack of nuance (with scant exceptions, any elaborate arm-flapping and finger-pointing is meant simply to justify their permanent core philosophy of LIBERAL = KILL, and is by no means the result of honest examination of relevant information) now has to figure out a way to continue pretending that their objections are fundamentally based on principle. Might as well enjoy the one bit of good to come of all this. Pass the popcorn.

- cappysay

December 11, 2010 at 10:06am

You guys are wrong - so intent on defending Obama (for whom I voted) that you can't see what's happened here. The House Dems and Bernie Sanders and his few supporters appear to be the only leaders in Washington with any backbone at all. A majority of Americans appears to be extremely uncomfortable with extending tax cuts to the rich, many are dismayed about taking money out of SS, and meanwhile Obama, our hero, looks extremely weak in the face of corporate thugs ie Republicans, who after all do not control either the Senate or the White House. The majority of American people apparently DID want a public option for health care and also don't think that rich folks should get more tax cuts. So Obama's "compromise" really is high-handed and it's pretty pathetic that he dusts off Bill Clinton to try and sell this deal. What happened to "advise and consent" in the Congress? We didn't even have a show, an argument. In other words - THE PEOPLE had no chance whatsoever to speak through our elected officials on this wonderful tax deal. This is appalling - doubly so on top of the revelations of the "deficit commission" and all the panic about How We Are Dooming Our Children. That's antidemocratic, as is the incredible increase in wealth and power enjoyed by a shrinking few Americans and of course, corporations which enjoy the status of a human being yet seem to avoid paying much at all in the way of taxes - and which are repeatedly bailed out by the people they abuse.

- Sophia

December 11, 2010 at 3:14pm

Both the White House and the Republicans (and apparently Robert Powell) are operating on the same cheery premise, promoted by the same corporate and Wall Street economists -- that there is a "recovery" in our future. But, in terms of recovery for the bottom 80-90%, they are wrong. Over the last 30 years spend-thrift, indulgent, unregulated "conservative" economic policies promoted by both parties, and the elimination of any representation of working class interests in either party or the media, have helped to destroy the middle class -- that is, the broad, prosperous consumer market that accounted for 70% of US economic activity. We've been propping up that middle class and hiding the end of economic mobility and real consequences of our economic fecklessness from ourselves for decades -- mostly with the false prosperity of ever easier and more questionable credit and a series of short term bubbles. Now, we're pretty much at the end of our rope in terms of those short term fixes (that leave everyone except those at the top of the pyramid worse off than before, while those at the top make out like bandits). Precisely because this strategy of destroying the middle class standard of living and asset accumulaton (declining wages and employment, which in turn fuels declining small business opportunities) and replacing it with ever greater levels of debt IS so profitable for our elite (not just the super rich themselves but the lower rung of professionals and service providers whose incomes derive from serving the interests of financial elites) they are simply unable to grasp the depth of failure and danger in our current economic situation. They expect another bubble, or another fiddle with monetary policy, to come along and save "us." (That expected "recovery.") They haven't noticed that with each one of these bubble and fiddles, more and more Americans are being tossed off the prosperity train and the level of pain is now overwhelming -- and overwhelmingly obvious to all but those in their narrow and well-protected bubble. Most Americans don't, realistically, see a recovery on the horizon -- they are instead experiencing and anticipating even greater outright decline. This deal, like most of the economic dealing of the last 30 years, won't address the broader economy's real problems, and therefore will end up making those problems worse. Why argue whether its a good deal or not when the truth is neither side in the deal is able to comprehend, much less address, the real economic crisis that a majority of Americans face?

- esmense

December 11, 2010 at 5:45pm

Robert Powell: "They would sacrifice struggling workers in order to punish 'the rich'." Once again, repeating that claim doesn't make it any truer. We're having this discussion in another thread (http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/79801/why-tax-reform-has-wait-until-the-second-term#comment-303793) so I won't repeat the arguments here. I will only point out that objecting to a deal where at least 25% of the benefits go to the wealthiest 1% is not an act to "punish the rich" but a principled opposition to bad policy. If there is a good policy justification for extending the upper income tax cuts, I have yet to hear it. And if there's no good policy justification, then I don't see how calling for its removal can be described as punishment.

- dsimon

December 11, 2010 at 6:06pm

There simply IS no good policy justification. And, what esmense said. This should have been obvious before the "housing bubble" burst. People with common sense would look around at these truly gigantic houses that are sprouting up everywhere, with pricetags to match, and ask, "Who on earth can afford to buy and maintain these places?" Well guess what.

- Sophia

December 11, 2010 at 9:24pm

Oops, wrong link in prior post: I do believe that Strassel stole her argument from Clive Crook, http://bit.ly/iggYlW : Good Lord. One minute, he's reassuring progressives. We are good and they are evil. It's victims and hostage-takers, no less. Just be patient, our time will come, and accounts with the enemy will be settled. Next minute, he's rebuking the same progressives. Spare me your sanctimonious purism. It's un-American. We have good-faith differences of opinion. "This country was founded on compromise."

- adsprung

December 11, 2010 at 10:38pm

dsimon-- It is punishment for the unemployed and lower-income folks who will lose nearly $750 billion in stimulative cuts so that the purists can reject letting the upper bracket keep 4.5% more of their own money--which amounts to the much smaller figure of $114. It is not possible to have negotiations only with one's self. Whether or not you or I might find a 4.5% tax increase on the top bracket reasonable, Republicans genuinely think that we need to cut spending rather than just go with knee-jerk tax increases on the top bracket. To them this amounts to punishing the most productive element of the economy. Agree or not, it's a legitimate point of view and, moreover, one they are willing to go to the mat for at this point. Whether or not this was always the case, it is now, and simply taking sanctimonious poses is not going to substitute for grownup negotiations, which means dealing with your opponents' goals as well as your own.

- Robert Powell

December 12, 2010 at 12:47pm

That's $114 billion for the top bracket cuts, of course.

- Robert Powell

December 12, 2010 at 12:49pm

Ah - with regard to the costs - the really insidious thing about this deal is the cuts to payroll taxes, which directly impact Social Security. Do you guys really think they'll be temporary? What will come of that? Also, does anybody really believe that the economy will be saved by nickels and dimes? This "stimulus" will create some jobs maybe at Walmart. REAL job creation requires structural changes. Exporting American jobs and industries has wreaked havoc with our economy. Did the Germans do this? We are beginning to more closely resemble Greece.

- Sophia

December 12, 2010 at 1:18pm

Is there any evidence whatsoever that the top 1% are "the most productive sector of the economy"? Because if not, and I suspect not, there is no reason to treat this goal as legitimate.

- ironyroad

December 12, 2010 at 5:48pm

Also, define "productive." For example - poor farm workers actually produce something that people need. So?

- Sophia

December 12, 2010 at 5:59pm

Gee I'm sure you're right. "Poor farm workers" have certainly done more for our economy than Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, the Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the engineers at Boeing and Caterpillar, the entertainment industry, and etc. What was I thinking? Death to Class Enemies!

- Robert Powell

December 13, 2010 at 3:58am