All you need to know about both sides on the budget came during the showdown over extending the Bush tax-cuts for the top 2%. That came at a cost of roughly $360 billion over the next two years. It is impossible for me to take seriously any GOP candidate who claims to be a deficit hawk who also supported that extension because it came at nearly 10X the cost as the cuts they nearly shut the government down for.
Not allowing those cuts was also one of Obama's key campaign promises. And he caved. He had an opportunity before the elections to force a floor vote in the House in which the GOP would have to vote against a measure extending everyone's tax cut but the top 2%, crystallizing the real stakes to the GOP position, and refused to even make them put their votes where their mouths were. It was a huge tactical error politically and from a policy position and revealed him as a man without a real principled vision for the future of the country who is not willing to draw any lines in the sand. And what did the Dems get out of that deal? The extension of unemployment benefits. He's a person who actively encourages political hostage taking by caving in every single time.
Frankly, if this had been my negotiation the Planned Parenthood and NPR threats were so nakedly political and designed to be inessential that I would have billions off the table with the GOP as an insult-tax for thinking they could play those games. Not our Democratic party. They gave more away.
The reality is that Obama could emerge from the West Wing tomorrow advocating the repeal of all abortion rights, the abolition of the EPA, tax cuts for everyone, the elimination of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and the vast majority of the GOP base still wouldn't like him. He's got to get over the idea that he can win them over and lead public opinion instead of follow it.
All that said, I would love to play poker with the man.
Not allowing those cuts was also one of Obama's key campaign promises. And he caved. He had an opportunity before the elections to force a floor vote in the House in which the GOP would have to vote against a measure extending everyone's tax cut but the top 2%, crystallizing the real stakes to the GOP position, and refused to even make them put their votes where their mouths were. It was a huge tactical error politically and from a policy position and revealed him as a man without a real principled vision for the future of the country who is not willing to draw any lines in the sand. And what did the Dems get out of that deal? The extension of unemployment benefits. He's a person who actively encourages political hostage taking by caving in every single time.
Frankly, if this had been my negotiation the Planned Parenthood and NPR threats were so nakedly political and designed to be inessential that I would have billions off the table with the GOP as an insult-tax for thinking they could play those games. Not our Democratic party. They gave more away.
The reality is that Obama could emerge from the West Wing tomorrow advocating the repeal of all abortion rights, the abolition of the EPA, tax cuts for everyone, the elimination of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and the vast majority of the GOP base still wouldn't like him. He's got to get over the idea that he can win them over and lead public opinion instead of follow it.
All that said, I would love to play poker with the man.
