Just FYI: This right-wing controlled House is why Obama cut a tax deal last year

[killbotfactory]

If he hadn't of cut a tax deal, everyone's taxes would have been raised, not just the rich, and millions of people would have seen their unemployment benefits run out, among other things. In a fragile recovering economy, this is a bad thing. You don't take money out of consumers hands when they are already hurting for money.

To mitigate these effects he would have had to negotiate with the current congress who is currently willing to risk sending not just the US economy , but the world economy, back into the crapper in order to protect their rich buddies and attack Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Regardless of any last minute deal that might come about, the delay is already hurting us economically. Trying to get any legislation worth a damn passed to help the economy with these people would be futile.

Whether you agree with his course of action or not, please try to understand what a difficult position Obama was put in by the voters the next time you hear someone flippantly attack him for "protecting" the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, or for being spineless for not just letting all the tax cuts expire because "republicans would cave eventually and wouldn't want to be labelled as job killers". And remember, people voted in the tea party republicans largely because the economy wasn't fixed two years into a recession that took Bush and the republicans nearly a decade to engineer.

Please direct the blame to those who deserve it: The GOP, The media who refuses to call them on their bullshit, and their wealthy backers who are counting on a GOP controlled government two years down the line to mitigate whatever damage is caused to their pocketbooks in the short term chaos currently being created.

[kenny blankenship]

1. You mean the event which demonstrated that Obama would let himself be rolled by GOP hostage takers?

It's no wonder we're now facing demands to hand over Social Security and Medicare as well!

If they get a deal -ANY DEAL- what will they want next year?

[killbotfactory]

5. Their demands would be the same regardless.

But in the last congress there were enough republicans to support a compromised deal to mitigate some of the damage they caused. Now there are not.

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Obama and Congressional Dems should have dealt with this in

January 2009 when he had the clear opportunity. Instead, he bipartisaned the thing.

To try and fail is one thing, but Obama never even tried.

[babylonsister]

4. January 2009? Yea, that's right, he was slacking off that month. nt

[tblue]

10. In January 2009, he had enormous political capital.

He would have had enormous public support for the bold change we thought we had voted for. It would have been much more difficult for the party that had just been fired to put up a stink. The president squandered that huge once-in-a-generation opportunity and he won't ever have it again. Many first-tme voters are left now to wonder why they ever got their hopes up. That's what hurts me so much. The disillusion that is turning those voters off from participating, maybe for good. I have never felt this disillusioned by any Democrat.

[babylonsister]

18. iirc, he was trying to save this country from a depression,

which he did. He had tons on his plate, still does, but go ahead-enjoy you're wallowing. I think this Prez is too busy to wallow.

[Hippo_Tron]

23. While that's true, they figured they could address it at a later date

Sometimes people fuck up.

[babylonsister]

3. Damned if he does... thanks, and rec'd. I agree; blame to

those who deserve it.

[CakeGrrl]

6. K/R; but some are happy to carry water for the GOP and blame the President

for a Congress that's so insane they're willing to shoot the hostage if they don't get exactly what they want.

And they have never gotten exactly what they want, despite repeated claims around here that they've been handed everything by a compliant President.

[MadMaddie]

20. CakeGrrl you have nailed it

[enough]

7. I know what you mean, but what I hate about it is the idea that we have all completely

given up on the idea that we could have a President who would put his muscle and influence behind something.

We can always find a reason why there is no fight, but what would it have been like if from the day he took office, he had actually been in there trying to make something different happen? We can't even imagine that now.

I think this has profoundly affected many of the potentially active people in this country. If the President has no power and just has to accept the situation and "make the best" of it, how can the people feel that they have any reason to be engaged?

[killbotfactory]

11. The teabaggers have no political will to deal with the president

Obama can huff and puff and breath fire down there necks, but they gain nothing politically from doing anything but shooting the nation in the foot while banking on the fact that our government is so corrupt and confusing that people will get fed up and blame Obama.

If the nation becomes better, in any way at all, they hurt their case in the next election.

This is pretty much par for the course whenever there is an established conservative "pro-business" wing of the government. If anybody resembling a leftwinger gets elected, they just shut it down, make everybody's lives hell, and then pin the blame on the newcomers. In South America, for example, this kind of crap would be traditionally followed by death squads, coup attempts, and sometimes all out war. Usually with the support and assistance from our government, but especially so when the GOP is in power.

[GOPBasher]

8. That's why all of this should have been done in 2009, when we had 59/60 senators and

a huge mandate. I cut him some slack when he caved on some sort of public option (I personally preferred a Medicare buy-in program), because Lieberman and a few conservative Dems in the Senate forced his hand. I thought he got the best thing he could. But why the hell didn't they fix the taxes at THAT time? And why didn't they raise the debt ceiling enough to get through the first term? Didn't they know the nutcases they'd be dealing with?

[killbotfactory]

12. At the very least they should have done something before the election

But congress didn't want to play along until voters elected republicans back into power.

[Hippo_Tron]

24. Nobody was predicting the GOP slaughter that happened in 2010

The Democrats should've dealt with taxes in 2009 or 2010 with reconciliation if absolutely necessary for Senate passage. They didn't because they figured they could hold off until after the election. They fucked up. It happens sometimes.

[GOPBasher]

26. "Nobody was predicting the GOP slaughter that happened in 2010"

You're right about the magnitude of the defeat, but just about everyone was at least predicting that the GOP would regain the majority. Even with a very slim majority, they'd still be able to hold Dems hostage. I'm not an Obama-basher. I like him and I think his heart is in the right place, but I think that, politically, he missed some golden opportunities in 2009.

[Hippo_Tron]

27. No they weren't

In 2009 people were predicting the GOP being relegated to third party status. The Democrats had a huge majority in both houses and Arlen Specter bolting the GOP was seen as an indicator of their hopeless inability to appeal to moderates.

[ProSense]

9. There were quite a few people

who wanted the President to hand off unemployment benefits to the Republican Congress.

That would have been a recipe for disaster: handing the GOP a hostage that no one in the Republican Party cares about: Unemployed Americans.

Can you imagine? A bargaining chip to use over and over again for an entire year? First they would have let the unemployed suffer (they did for seven weeks last year), and then under pressure they would have raised it for about three months, but not before the MSM had a chance to blame Democrats. Then they would have repeated that cycle a couple more times.

Forget the other parts of the deal---Medicaid expanded funding, EITC, and other aid would have been history. The GOP would never have considered those.

The GOP's only bargaining chip now is the debt ceiling, which if allowed to expire would also affects Wall Street. That is why there is a civil war brewing among the GOP.

[killbotfactory]

13. Yes, it would have strengthened their hand

I don't know why anybody in their right mind would embrace that option.

[ProSense]

14. No one

will admit to that. It's much easier to push the charge that Obama personally and secretly wanted to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Had the deal fell apart, the cheers would have quickly been replaced with: "What the hell was he thinking?" It would have been deemed a stupid move and everyone would have been questioning why it wasn't done during the last Congress.

[Armstead]

15. They should have put up the tax extension early in the term

The problem was that Obama and the Congress let the tax cut extensions go til the last minute.

Obama and the Democratic Congress should have put a vote on the floor early on in his term that would guarantee an extension of the Bush tax Cuts for the middle and lower classes, while removing it for the wealthy.

The GOP would have probably blocked it. But they would be on record as being opposed to lower taxes for the majority in favor of the rich.

Submit it again...Let the GOP block it again......etc.

Eventually the GOP would have had to either cave, or at least it would have given the Democrats something to beat up on the GOP with, which might have made a difference in 2010.

[killbotfactory]

16. The GOP may have been in the minority, but they still had enough power to stall everything

Just because they were in a slim minority in congress didn't make them powerless. They tried to block damn near everything Obama and the democrats proposed, so I'm not sure why they would have caved on this issue when they didn't have to, and even then it barely squeaked through at the last minute.

[Armstead]

17. Please reread my post

It acknowledges what you said. But it would have put the Democrats in a much stronger position politically --- especially in diluting the impact of the Teabaggers in their formative stages.

[killbotfactory]

21. The teabaggers were embolded by a compliant media and the health care debate

I just don't think it would have had much impact, considering our media, general ignorance of the political process among american citizens. Republicans had shitcanned any attempt to rescind the bush tax cuts months before the election and it didn't cost them any political points.

I think it comes down to this: Times were tough, republicans and the blue dogs had enough influence to water down any legislation that would have had a greater impact on fixing the damage caused by the previous administration, and the voters were jaded by it all, benefiting the party that was currently out of power. Political posturing by the president just wouldn't have impacted the election in any major way.

[Armstead]

25. I disagree...I guess we should leave it at that for now

[enough]

19. I absolutely agree on who is to "blame." But does this mean that President Obama

was powerless and could have done (and can do) nothing to influence the situation? Of course he was in a "difficult position." What else would anyone be in who was President of the United States?

But is the President of the United States completely powerless to influence what happens and how it is understood by the people of the country? If that is what we really think, then we had better start talking about that.

[Phx_Dem]

22. +1

[politicasista]

28. Some won't just blame Obama, but other Dems

and repeat RW memes about them that the media started, when they have been proven false.