If Obama Will Not Fight for Fair Taxes and Fiscal Stability, What Will He Fight For?

[Catherina]

If Obama Will Not Fight for Fair Taxes and Fiscal Stability, What Will He Fight For?
by John Nichols

December 6, 2010

When Barack Obama walked out of last week's meeting with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and started talking about developing a "productive" working relationship with Republican congressional leaders who have sworn the political equivalent of a blood oath to destroy his presidency, it was clear that the president planned to abandon his many years of advocacy for ending Bush-era tax breaks for millionaires.

Now, with the lame-duck session of a Congress still entirely controlled by Democrats races toward a earlier-than-expected conclusion, the deal is being cut.

Obama's representatives-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and White House budget director Jack Lew-have reportedly entered the final stages of a negotiation with the Republican team of Arizona Senator Jon Kyl and Michigan Congressman Dave Camp to extend all Bush tax cuts for for at least two years.

In return, federal unemployment benefits will be extended for up to one year.

The only remaining sticking point has to do with the question of whether to offer a small tax credit for working Americans-the "Make Work Pay" provision-and a tax credit for students, both of which were developed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus package. Remarkably, Republican negotiators who are going to the mat to defend $140 billion in tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans are objecting to maintaining $70 million in tax credits for the other 98 percent.

This negotiation is not headed toward a compromise. It is headed toward a complete capitulation.

The argument will be made that Obama and the Democrats had to fold in order to secure an extension of unemployment benefits.

But the political, fiscal and logical calculus does not add up.


More:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/156856/if-obama-will-not-fight-fair-taxes-and-fiscal-stability-what-will-he-fight

[Brickbat]

1. So far, I've seen him fight for fuck-all.

[donheld]

31. Fuck-all but the Rich

he doesn't seem to want to piss them off.

[vi5]

2. A few things...

He'll fight mean old liberal bloggers who expect him to promote and fight for Democratic principles.

He'll fight any judge who declares Don't Ask Don't Tell to be unconstitutional.

He'll fight to keep Government Secrecy.

I'm sure there are a few others but these are just off the top of my head.

[Poboy]

7. He'll fight to prevent the war crimes and profiteering from ever being prosecuted.

He'll fight for the financial criminals.
He'll fight for the corporate criminals.
He'll fight FOR the powerful, and AGAINST the powerless.

He's a real hero!

[Winterblues]

9. Don't forget to keep torturers free from any and all prosecution

:shrug: I have never suffered a bigger disappointment than Obama has turned out to be.

[Individualist]

28. Yep!

[DrDan]

3. a three-pointer

[Blue_In_AK]

4. Nothing,

and I'm really done with him.

[SocialistLez]

5. He'll fight to sell us out...

[asdjrocky]

6. More and longer tax cuts for the rich.

But on the bright side, he's really good at pretending it bothers him.

[Catherina]

12. I don't even find him believable anymore.

It must be nice to be rich in this country.

Maybe, since they get to keep all their money now, they'll hire a few more servants so some of us can have jobs?

[asdjrocky]

14. Maybe they will be kind and let us eat their leftovers.

We can hope.

[Catherina]

22. I hope so. I promise we won't eat so much. n/t

[Selatius]

8. When you bargain down a murder charge, you can get yourself manslaughter instead.

Look at it this way: You're basically negotiating with someone who wants to put a bullet in your head. You may be able to negotiate him down to simply shooting you in the stomach.

That's basically what is happening when you are dealing with Republicans. Personally, I would've rammed through a bill keeping the tax cuts for the middle class, and I would've rather watched things go to stalemate in the Senate and then blame the Republicans until I'm drunk off eggnog.

[DJ13]

10. I guarantee he will fight for austerity programs to reduce those dirty 'entitlements'

'cause, you know, the deficit is so important that he just gave the wealthy more tax cuts.

[w4rma]

11. He'll fight against progressives. He seems to hate the people who voted for him. (nt)

[TheWebHead]

13. tax policy should be judged on the word fair

that's an emotional and financially punitive point of view, it should be about economic outcomes, impact on behavior and global competitiveness

[amborin]

15. he fought for TARP; made lots of phone calls to senators to get it passed, while still a candidate

in fall of 2008

[northernlights]

16. Wall Street. nt

[Starry Messenger]

17. He'll fight for union busting, enforcing pot laws, and privitizing education. n/t

[muffin1]

18. K&R

Wow. Just fucking wow. Unemployment extended 13 months - millionaire and billionaire tax cuts for two years. At least.
Fuck this.

[rug]

19. That's the old politics. He doesn't believe in fights.

Except for drones.

[NorthCarolina]

20. He will fight for the same causes as the GOP. He is true blue DLC. nt

[MNBrewer]

21. For not fighting?

[Kyad02]

23. It would have been better in the long run if McCain won.....

And the economy collapsed totally. Then the Repukes would be dead as a party and we could have run a true Democrat in 2012

[Autumn]

24. He will fight to reduce the deficit,

of course all that deficit reduction will be on backs the poor and the people who need help, but what the fuck, he has to fight for something.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

25. Apparently --

nothing I find worth fighting for. :shrug:

And what he choses to fight? DADT rulings? Trials for war criminals? Me -- not so much. :puke:

[Monique1]

26. and what are doing to fight? Give up?

Yep, that is the progressive way, blame and give up.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

29. I am not giving up figjting for liberal/progressive values --

Sadly, I now have to fight against the President to achive them. :(

[sarcasmo]

27. The Bankers.

[AdHocSolver]

30. Extending tax cuts for the wealthy to sustain an alleged recovery is voodoo Reagonomics.

First of all the economy is NOT in recovery. The increase in the stock market is due to all the bailout money given to Wall Street. The U.S. economy has become a game of Monopoly where a player loses everything and is allowed to borrow money from the "bank" to keep the game going. The stock market isn't the REAL economy.

The increase in GDP is not sustainable when so many people are unemployed and more are losing their jobs everyday. This country is experiencing a creeping inflation which is going to accelerate in the next couple of years. Borrowing money to give tax breaks is going to exacerbate inflation by pouring too many borrowed dollars into the economy. At some point, those who lend the U.S. money are going to demand a higher rate of return or they will stop the lending. Then this economy will crash heavily.

Obama is making decisions based on voodoo economics. The rich are going to put their tax gifts into investments in foreign countries (where the returns on investment are greater), and the middle class is going to spend their money buying goods made in China and other low wage countries because that is all you can find in the stores these days. Neither action is going to produce more jobs in the U.S.

Want to help the U.S. economy AND help the currently unemployed AND reduce government debt? The recipe is so simple. No more so-called "free trade" agreements like NAFTA which are nothing more than corporate cartel agreements designed to eliminate competition. Replace the banker run Federal Reserve with a real national bank beholden to the public. Place import quotas and duties on imports from slave wage countries so that American companies can hire American workers and still compete for business.

When Americans have jobs, they don't need handouts to survive, and governments can support infrastructure, education, and affordable health care without increasing the deficits because people who have jobs PAY TAXES.

What a novel approach to a sustainable economy.