Democrats should be for jobs - not taxcuts.

[kentuck]

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

A year from now, it is doubtful that we will be out of this economic mess. Unemployment will remain high, even though the wealthy just got their taxcuts extended. Taxcuts do not create jobs in this environment.

What do we do about these millions of people that are unemployed? Some estimate as many as 17 million unemployed workers. This is a crisis which taxcuts cannot fix. We need jobs for these folks, not unemployment checks, even though the majority get no benefits anyway.

If people cannot get a job in 99 weeks, we have serious problems in our economy. Unemployment checks are not the solution. Democrats need to stand up for job creation. If businesses and corporations cannot create jobs, then it is government's responsibility. The money spent on these taxcuts would have been better spent on WPA-type jobs to help those millions of poor Americans struggling to survive.

We have betrayed long-time Democratic principles by agreeing to such nonsense as was agreed upon yesterday. It is voodoo economics. It is time to denounce supply-side economics once and for all. They have caused great damage to our country with their false ideology.

Two years from now, we will be facing reality. What do we do with all these unemployed people? Then, we will understand what a great mistake we made by going along with this taxcut charade.

[Enrique]

1. unfortunately, Obama has linked jobs with tax cuts

disastrous for the party's message.

edit: but the Heritage Foundation appreciates the gift:

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/12/07/morning-bell-freeze-taxes-freeze-spending-and-go-home/

The President defended this compromise by finally stating the obvious: ”Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.” It’s great that a leader of the progressive movement is willing to recognize the link between higher taxes and lost jobs.

[xchrom]

2. it's through the looking glass.

and just another way of showing that moderates are doing to 'progressive' what reagan did to 'liberal'.

[dpbrown]

3. The Republicans know that tax cuts in this economy will further stultify the recovery

And then in two years, they'll be able to run against Obama on his failure to fix the recession.

Obama gets rolled again.

[ljm2002]

4. You are so right!

The economic argument has been successfully framed -- by the Republicans. For one example, one of the "concessions" from Republicans is we all get a tax holiday from the payroll taxes that fund Social Security. Great, we all like to have more $$ to spend.

The thing is, though, this will be used down the road as a tool to further erode faith in Social Security, making it easier for Republicans to argue that we need to make it means-tested or cut the benefits or raise the retirement age or what have you.

"Keeping more of our own money" -- Republican framing. "Don't raise taxes in a recession" -- Republican framing. "Raising taxes on small businesses means fewer jobs" -- Republican framing. "Small businesses" -- Republican framing, even though their positions have the most benefit for the very, very large corporations that hold the purse strings for political campaigns. None of this Republican framing is countered, so people have now internalized it, making it that much harder to dislodge.

K&R