TIMOTHY NOAH DECEMBER 17, 2011
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The Senate approved an extension of the payroll tax cut, but it's not the Obama victory I'd anticipated. It isn't a defeat either, exactly. But it isn't terribly satisfying.
The extension is only for two months. You might argue that this gives Obama a political issue to clobber Republicans with around the time of the State of the Union address, but I would have thought right now was the moment of maximum leverage. It's reasonable to worry that the GOP will exact further concessions from Obama before renewing the payroll break, because they got a concession this time out that I didn't expect. Even after Obama insisted he'd veto any bill that included language forcing his hand on approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, the Senate included the language in the bill and Obama now says he won't veto it after all. Obama had hoped to delay a decision on Keystone until after the 2012 election. Now he must either approve it or kill it. He'll probably kill it, inviting an unwelcome fight.
Unlike the previous Senate votes on both Democratic and Republican plans to extend the payroll tax cut, this one was supported by a majority of Republicans and a majority of Republican leaders, including minority whip John Kyl of Arizona, who previously was very publicly against the extension. There were only 10 nays, including Democrats Pat Leahy of Vermont and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. The independent Bernie Sanders, who opposed extending the payroll tax cut all along, also voted nay, along with a smattering of Republicans.
The bill still needs to clear the House, but it probably will.
22 comments
None of it surprises me anymore. Democrats and Obama tend to cave...
- andyman344
December 17, 2011 at 12:37pm
In the political wilderness, TN. Having last year's political battle this year is like having a date with last year's prom queen this year: the likely rewards are just not the same.
- rayward
December 17, 2011 at 12:46pm
In the political wilderness, TN. Having last year's political battle this year is like having a date with last year's prom queen this year: the likely rewards are just not the same.
- rayward
December 17, 2011 at 12:47pm
When you have one party that is reasonable and one that is not, the reasonable one will be the party to compromise.
- liberalref
December 17, 2011 at 12:53pm
I'm with andyman, this is hardly surprising. Obama is simply the wrong president for this moment in history. He's been making some good speeches lately--speech-making being his forte--but on this, the first confrontation of import since the debt ceiling showdown, he yet again compromises. And it does not matter if what he gave up isn't all that significant; what's more important is that he gave up his leverage. The Repubs handed him a cudgel studded with nails with which to bash them--"The Republicans will move heaven and earth to lock in permanent tax breaks for the richest few, but they won't lift a finger to bring tax relief to the millions of Americans who day in, day out work at jobs that keep this country afloat"--and now he has handed it back to them. And why two months? Why should that be even minimally acceptable? Isn't it obvious is that the only reason the GOP gave him two months is so that they can hold him up for more concessions in the new year? I can't share drofnats's belief that a GOP victory in 2012 would somehow work out better for the country than four more years of Obama, but I have long since given up any hope that the man will get wise. Obama's worldview requires that all party's bargain in good faith. Confronted with Republican bad faith--which is all they have to offer--he is at a loss.
- AaronW
December 17, 2011 at 4:33pm
Look any time there is a do or die situation, the GOP will demand hostages. I would have tried for a one year deal, even if the cost was higher because two months from now, more hostages will be ransomed by that vile POS from Bluegrass State.
- MikeB.
December 17, 2011 at 4:54pm
why is Sanders agains the payroll tax cut? If you can't get a socialist to support it, who can you get? look, there were only 10 nays so that has to say something. I don't know what, but something.
- blackton
December 17, 2011 at 6:00pm
I think compromising in a disadvantageous situation -- although this wasn't as bad as the debt ceiling -- is a legitimate option, but it's a matter of timing it right and seeing how the tradeoffs look. I find the criticism sometimes confusing, however. A whole bunch of folks have been continually saying that Obama compromises before the game requires it -- he sketches out where he'll back off before the other party demands it or sets out their own lines in the sand. OK, but here he didn't do that. He said he would stand firm on no pipeline legislation. He maintained that line, and then when he had to, he compromised. So he didn't do it right this time either? I'm puzzled because it seems that what some people are saying is that Obama, facing a hostile majority in the House and holding a very shaky majority in the Senate including conservative Dems who seem to want to lose the White House, should never compromise. I don't get how that would work, to be honest.
- ironyroad
December 17, 2011 at 6:01pm
The upside is that Obama and Democrats can continue to beat Republicans over the head with this issue (refusal to extend a tax cut primarily for the middle class) over the next two months.
- kluhman
December 17, 2011 at 7:48pm
Irony, how it would work us this: whether or not it is popular with Republican legislators, extending the payroll tax is popular with voters. Obama need not and should not give up anything to achieve such a widely popular policy goal. If the GOP obstructionists back down and give Obama what he wants, great. If they don't, then he beats them over the head with it. It should be the foremost aim of all Democrats in this election year to draw stark distinctions between themselves and Republicans, especially on issues such as the tax holiday where the voters overwhelmingly favor the Democratic position.
- AaronW
December 17, 2011 at 8:59pm
Whoops. I unleashed the italics monster. Apologies.
- AaronW
December 17, 2011 at 9:00pm
Or not.
- AaronW
December 17, 2011 at 9:01pm
Yes, we need to toss out that rotter, Barack Hussein Obama. He doesn't have the spine and the clarity of vision that those geniuses have who comment for The New Republic and rip into Obama. It's too bad that these specimens of humanity weren't available to run the country during the Great Depression. The US would probably have been out of the Depression by March of '30 at the very latest, if they had been at the helm.
- liberalref
December 17, 2011 at 9:18pm
There you go again, libref. Shades of July. Your position is that anything Obama does must be right because he's the prez, and any criticism we lowly civilians offer is invalid by reason of the fact that we aren't elected officials. Such deference to authority, liberalref... You should be embarrassed. If you believe Obama's decision was correct, defend it. But if all you have to say is, "Obama is president, and you're not", then please just take a nap.
- AaronW
December 18, 2011 at 2:46am
Sorry, guys, but I'm a little lost here. The President gets the tax cut and extension he needs just before the holidays, thereby keeping such meager recovery as we have going and getting us that much closer to the election. He gets to highlight Republican obstruction in the State of the Union when the same tax cut and extension come up and just when normal people start paying attention to the upcoming election. He is "forced" to cancel a pipeline he probably wanted to cancel anyway, in a manner that both helps restore some of his bona fides with environmentalists he had previously pissed off over the ozone rules while legitimately claiming that Republicans had made him do it by not giving the State Dept sufficient time to do its analysis. This is not the best deal, no. But a bad deal? A cave? Sorry, don't see it.
- timteeter
December 18, 2011 at 9:36am
I have to side with LIbref here. You have to defend the President, even if he is guilty, because what the other side is doing is wrong. But I would add that I am angry about anything in a U.S. law that comes anywhere near the authority to create detention camps, which was once the seed of horror. And if anyone doesn't see the hypocrisy in this, I refer them to Hitler's Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich
- Nusholtz
December 18, 2011 at 10:30am
timteeter is right, beyond this Obama need not cancel the pipeline, he need only tell the truth that the studies are not finished so until they are he is temporarily stopping it from going forward and that he will be happy to revisit the issue when all the environmental impact studies are done. However it looks like the House is in full on obstruction mode.
- blackton
December 18, 2011 at 11:11am
Yes, blackton, and thank you. However, in the case of the House, and in support of my analysis, I see in at the least the Reuters report that Boehner wants to get the payroll tax reduction extended for a full year. Maybe he knows something his Senate colleagues don't.
- timteeter
December 18, 2011 at 11:59am
All I can do is throw up my hands. I have never once wrote that everything that BHO does is right merely because he is president. A person who claims that about me has to be either (1) Clueless or (2) An outright liar, which is to say, not good either way. I have been highly critical of Obama on civil liberties, sometimes on foreign policy and also, on domestic policy. What I have taken on repeatedly here is the notion that the TNR geniuses could do it better if they were president. I also take on attitudes like the notion that Obama is spineless and that he is out of his depth. The idea of brave TNR keyboard peckers running the country is an hilarious thought experiment to me. I have written before that if any one of them were president, he would be running out of the White House screaming, well before his first day was over. I much appreciate your comment, nush.
- liberalref
December 18, 2011 at 12:31pm
"I have never once wrote that everything that BHO does is right merely because he is president." Not in so few words, liberalref, but you have said what amounts to the same thing over an over again. Almost never to you respond specifically to any criticism made of the president. Instead you attempt to undermine us citizens' authority to say anything at all. You suggest that a prerequisite for speaking critically about politics is a position at the inside table. I do not have the time or the interest to go back and find your own posts for you liberalref, but they're there. From your post above: "Yes, we need to toss out that rotter, Barack Hussein Obama. He doesn't have the spine and the clarity of vision that those geniuses have who comment for The New Republic and rip into Obama." Let's unpack this sarcastic spume a little. In it you are attempting to characterize all criticisms of the president by your fellow TNR commenters as the indiscriminate rantings of self-deluded (non)-geniuses. In other words you are attacking not my criticism but my basis to criticize. It isn't precisely the same as saying that anything Obama does is beyond criticism, but it achieves the same end.
- AaronW
December 18, 2011 at 2:44pm
"The bill still needs to clear the House, but it probably will." Only today it seems like it probably won't. How do you even negotiate with people, who won't negotiate in good faith?
- AllanL5
December 19, 2011 at 11:06am
"that if any one of them were president, he would be running out of the White House screaming, well before his first day was over. " Indeed. I certainly would. If elected President, my first act would be to pardon myself; my second would be to resign. Seriously, it is an enormously difficult job, and anyone who wants the job should not be allowed to have it. I am not very comfortable with Obama, but he has not blown up the country yet.
- skahn
December 20, 2011 at 1:02am