2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Do you realize what Obama actually did here? [View all]JayhawkSD
(3,163 posts)The Bush tax cuts were not part of the "fiscal cliff" to begin with. That was a deal regarding the debt ceiling last year that had to do with spending cuts as a trade off for raising the ceiling. Part of that deal was a Democratic insistence that the deal would include revenue as well as spending cuts, but the deal was all about the spending cuts as a trade off for raising the ceiling.
When the time came to implement that deal Obama threw in the Bush tax cuts as part of the revenue part of it, then he managed to drop the spending cuts out of it. The "fiscal cliff deal" was about deficit reduction, and this tax deal does what doe deficit reduction? It eliminates about 1% of the deficit. So in terms of what was trying to be accomplished by that deal, what was accomplished this month was pretty much zero.
Obama made it about tax rates instead of deficit reduction, and then he got what we wanted.
Indeed, in two months we may be singing a different song; probably will. But we wanted the Bush tax cuts extended without the top bracket, and we got that. What the hell do you want? You are barefoot and get a pair of shoes, so you're going to reject them because you didn't get a new coat with them? Grow up. Obama pulled off a coup. Enjoy it.