All of the posturing over the President's compromise 'framework'. Will Congress do any differently?

[bigtree]

Will Congress just walk away from any attempt to compromise and just let the middle-class tax breaks expire?

Or, will they merely piggyback a slightly-tweaked compromise bill on top of the President's efforts, so far?

All of the cheering for the House rejecting the President's framework tax proposal begs the question of what folks expect the House Democrats to do to ensure those tax cuts and benefits don't expire.

Do they intend to preserve and extend the breaks and benefits, and how do they intend to make that happen?

[bigtree]

1. will they?

[spanone]

2. ???

[bigtree]

3. give me a break

all of the speculation about the President . . . all of the cheerleading as they announce they're chucking his plan. Does anyone really expect them to spur a compromise and just let the cuts expire. They're posturing, but it doesn't look like they'll do anything more than tweak his compromise and vote it forward. Begs the question of why they didn't just do that already?

[Bandit]

6. I personally hope they do

America needs to get back to some fiscal sanity.. Extending tax cuts that are completely irresponsible is ridiculous. they were fiscally irresponsible when they were passed in the first place and almost every single Democrat voted against them and they are even more so now knowing how they have effected the Deficit and will continue to do so in a even larger scale..Remember our interest on the National Debt just keeps growing and growing. Pretty soon we will have nothing but Defense spending and interest on debt..Republican wet dream...Anyone that wants to coninue with such irresponsible policies has an agenda that isn't America's..IMO

[bigtree]

19. it looks like they'll just adopt the President's plan in the Senate

. . . with a few changes to make it more attractive to Democratic legislators when it gets to the House. We'll see.

[Tatiana]

4. Well, this is (in a roundabout way) turning out to be a good strategy on the part of the President.

He's saying "if you think what I did sucked so bad, let's see you fix it and get something to my desk."

So now the onus is on them to produce. I think the President wanted to have the vote before the midterms but scaredy-pants Congresscritters chickened out.

Personally, I think the tax cuts should expire. UI benefits should be introduced separately. Put the Republicans on the record as being against the unemployed, especially during the holiday season when so many families are out of work and struggling.

[bigtree]

7. I wonder if they got that

Judging by their grandstanding against it, they haven't taken any responsibility at all for bringing middle-income wage earners to this point. Will they do any differently from the President? Will they compromise (as he has, albeit with some tweaking), or will they allow the tax breaks to fall?

[Tatiana]

9. I think the burden is on them to get something better than what the President negotiated done.

Either way, the President gets to take credit for motivating the lazy, scaredy-pants Congress to get something done.

Honestly, maybe insults are the only thing the Dems respond to.

Saying please get a bill to my desk doesn't work. Leaving the hashing out and details to them (re: HCR) didn't seem to work too well either. So maybe the only option was to "negotiate" something so distasteful that they would have extra motivation to do the work of the people.

[elleng]

5. Dunno, but just thought of a camel:

A horse designed by a committee.

[mmonk]

8. I don't know what will come out of it.

I applaud them though for throwing an ultimatum hammered out by the administration and their Republican counterparts back to them.

[bigtree]

10. why should it go back at/to the President? It's a framework. It's not binding.

Why is Congress relying on the President to negotiate with the legislators' own colleagues? They don't need applauding, they need to be challenged to getting back to doing their job. It would be different if they were taking some directly opposite stance than the WH, but they're not. They don't look to be willing to let the middle-income tax breaks expire along with the rest of them. They haven't been able to move the opposition, so they'll either have to decide to chuck it all or compromise.

If they compromise it begs two questions. Why are they posturing against the President for doing something they intend to do anyway, and, why haven't they done so already?

[Bluenorthwest]

11. You keep saying framework, but that is not what they were told

by Biden and Company, they were told take it or leave it, no changes. So you are not up to date on this, accuracy wise. It was in fact the all or nothing attitude that made it such an explosive day on the Hill, but you keep trying, ok? I know the fact that we have elected representatives in Congress who are not bound to following the decrees of Obama/McConnell is a bother to you, but that is how it is. Some of us manged to elect Democrats, even last month, and they are there to do what we want, not to join the President in a round of Sing Along With Mitch.

[bigtree]

13. you can't make what Biden says or wants binding to what Congress does

What Biden is saying is that the WH won't go back and unravel their deal. But, the deal isn't legislation. It's not a directive for Congress. It's just a proposal. There's nothing weaker than a legislator standing up and complaining that one of the President's proposals is holding them back from moving forward with their own plan.

And what will Congress eventually do? Will they just lay it all aside and refuse to vote on anything the Senate produces or anything the President proposes and let the tax breaks and jobless benefits expire? I seriously doubt that.

They will more than likely take the WH's framework agreement and piggyback their own compromise proposal on top. That's a distinction without much of a difference, leading me to ask what was keeping them from organizing the same compromise for the past year? Why did they allow their intransigence to push this issue to a month before the expiration deadline if all they were going to do was compromise. And where do they get off criticizing the President if all they are going to do is shave off parts of his compromise and still allow all the cuts to go forward?

[Life Long Dem]

12. After they quit playing games they will give a minor tweak

so they have a minor stake in the original deal. As if to say, Mr. President don't do this again.

Of course Obama won't play games in response to this because he's not playing childish games with ones unemployment check.

[bigtree]

14. that's right. That's going to be the extent of their grousing and grandstanding

It would be different if they actually intended to collectively stand firm against any extension, but, they're going to end up about where the President responsibly went. They just want him to take the heat for what they intend to ultimately do. Typical.

[mmonk]

15. It's his cover. And Congress isn't playing games.

Stopping this madness that is bankrupting our country isn't playing games. I lost the most I've ever lost since this right wing bullshit was enacted.

[bigtree]

16. Congress is most certainly playing games on this

They hold the power of the purse. They had the ability to negotiate whatever they wanted; whatever they believed would prevail to ensure the middle-income breaks and jobless benefits continue. If they were really serious about defending them, they wouldn't have brought the debate to a month before the benefits expired.

If they were as determined as you are about eliminating the upper-income cuts, they'd just let them all expire. But, they don't look like they are prepared to do that. They remind me of children balking at cleaning up their own room; prevaricating over their intentions; stalling until we turn our backs.

Senators will negotiate with republicans and pass a bill to the House. House leaders will eventually bring a variation of that bill to the floor. If and when those bills are reconciled - after all the grandstanding - the result will be a mirror of the President's compromise.

[Skidmore]

17. On Hardball, Matthews had Ezra Klein on with the back story of this

tax bill proposal. There is no Democratic representation in the Congress that is covered with glory in this mess. If you can locate this report, watch it. The ins and outs of negotiations and who or what were involved or not are covered.

[bigtree]

18. saw that

Klein is a sharp fellow.

[MadHound]

20. Let's see, the House passed, and sent on to the Senate,

Both an unemployment extension and the middle class tax cut. Both of these are bills that Obama favors, at least nominally. It is at this point in these sort of political show downs where the President goes out on the road, into the states of vulnerable, moderate Republican Senators and rallies the populace of that state in order to put enough pressure on those moderate, Republican Senators so that they vote for these bills.

So far, Obama has failed to follow through on his end of the bargain. He has made promises that he would fight for these issues, yet when it is time for him to fight, he faceplanted instead. Walked away from the fight over two weeks before the buzzer in this fight started. The 'Pugs didn't hardly touch the president, yet he went down faster than that first level fighter in the old Punch Out game, Glass Joe.

This is how legislation has gotten done in DC, and for it to work successfully, the president has absolutely got to be willing to go out and fight for what he wants. Clinton called Gingritch's bluff, and the man never fully recovered. LBJ went out and harangued Senators in their own states to get the Civil Rights Act passed. This is how together, legislative and presidential Democrats get things done.

So the Congress has done its job. The question becomes when, or if, Obama is going to do his.

[bigtree]

21. let's see. He can propose legislation. He can veto it. The rest is just talk.

Congress decides the language and content of legislation. They are the closest to their legislative colleagues and more capable of negotiating with them. Congress had many opportunities this past year to negotiate, compromise, or whatever they wanted. They aren't bound by what the President proposes, so it's just an excuse for them to claim he's somehow tying their hands.

The President did go out and persuade on this issue on the campaign trail. He's been including the issue of the republican cuts in speeches, addresses, and policy appeals for years. But he can't move legislation through the legislature. That's Congress' job. They can certainly try and deflect from that responsibility, but it's theirs, nonetheless.

[MadHound]

22. So, with over two weeks left in the legislative session, where the fuck is he?

Why isn't he out on the road fighting for his promises, his issues, his bills. Yeah, he made this promise on the campaign trail, where is the follow through now that crunch time is here.

So you think that a president should just sit back in the White House and do nothing while crunch time for his signature campaign promise is at hand? Really? Is that how Clinton and Carter, Truman and FDR, is that what they did when their crunch times were at hand?

No, you know that as well as I do. They joined in the fray and fought the good fight, and helped Congress bring that legislation to his desk. They certainly didn't do the faceplant cave with over two weeks before the buzzer, not even Carter who is considered by many to be a very weak president.

But instead, we've got Glass Joe, knocked out of the fight before it hardly begins. Pathetic.

[bigtree]

23. If he went on the road, folks would complain that he wasn't in Washington

. . . more deflection from Congress' responsibility for bringing us to this point.

You've over-romanticized the notion of his role in a legislative 'fight'. Where is Congress' responsibility in that fight?

The President is fighting. He's defending middle-income tax breaks and jobless benefits against expiration because of Congress' failure and intransigence in decoupling them from the upper-income cuts.

Senate Democratic leaders will end up doing almost EXACTLY what the President has done. They'll end up negotiating with republicans and compromising; leaving the upper-income cuts in place. They're just happy that he's out front taking the heat for their own dithering. They'll look to keep him there, too.

[laughingliberal]

24. If 'slight tweaking' is getting rid of the SS gutting 'payroll tax holiday,' it will be worth it. nt

[bigtree]

25. I can't find where that's been touched

Do you have anything on that?

[laughingliberal]

26. Just that Sanders in the Senate is trying to fight it.

He sees, as do I, the payroll tax holiday as a way to drain the SS coffers and then scream for benefit cuts.

I hope he can prevail in defeating, at least, this part of the deal and I hope the House will stand against it.

There are 2 very dangerous periods for SS in 2011. The first will be when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling (likely in April) when the Republicans (and some Democrats who love them) will try to hold the country hostage to get the deficit commission's proposals on SS cuts passed in exchange for their vote to raise the debt ceiling. The second time, if they fail in April, will be when it's time to do the FY 2012 budget and the usual suspects will scream about needing to cut spending. Of course, by 'spending' they mean SS and Medicare.

The payroll tax holiday will mean, for the first time ever, SS will be contributing to the debt as they take money from the general fund to replace the 2% cut to FICA. It will be a powerful weapon in the hands of the SS haters.