John Boehner, the presumptive next Speaker of the House, is standing firm on his call for extending the Bush tax cuts, for everyone, permanently. Compare that with David Axelrod who said that the Obama Administration, in order to get tax cuts for the middle-class, would accept an across-the-board tax cut, temporarily.
What happened to the Obama position of not extending the tax cuts for the billionaires? POOF!
Negotiations haven’t even started and Obama has already compromised his previous position away. We are now down to whether the tax cut extension will be temporary or permanent.
A golden political opportunity has slipped through the President’s fingers. What we need is a catchy slogan. Something short and sweet, with alliteration, that will show where Boehner’s true allegiance lies.
Here is William Greider’s take (worth a complete read):
Given the election results, the question Barack Obama has to decide for himself is whether he really wants to be president in the fullest sense. Not a moderator for earnest policy discussions. Not the national cheerleader for hope. Not the worthy visionary describing a distant future.
Can Obama play hardball?
H/T Reuters, Huffington Post.
-David Drumm (Nal)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/15/office-congressional-ethics-republican-chopping-block_n_783811.html
Sounds like a title to a all male firm…..
I kept lookin’ at that picture of ol’ Boehner and kept thinkin’ he sure looks like someone–and then it hit me.
It Howdy Doody Time! (of course, lil’ Doody don’t wear no 10 layers of Copper/Orange Tone…)
We all had expectations of Obama because of his racial background and because he was a constitutional law professor. I’ve been super upset because DOJ says it is an authorized law enforcement function to put pro se litigants in jail without a criminal charge. They could do the same thing to lawyers if they want a certain case dropped. My claims were insured by Underwriters at Lloyds. I don’t understand why Obama lets these foreign insurance companies run wild.
Tomorrow I am going to a Move-On pot luck to discuss what the democratic party response should be to the election.
http://www.sonyclassics.com/insidejob/ Documentary about the financial crisis and its participants. It runs from the Reagan administration to the Obama administration.
Obama is Barry Zito. Right place at the right time, perhaps good intentions, but the record does live up to the expectations of those who hired him. We have to find a way to move forward without him, like the Giants did in the MLB post season.
The government should be small enough so that Ronald Reagan can “drown it in his bathtub”, according to the Gipper himself.
That would be Obama, Boehner & crew, Pelosi & crew, Reid & crew, McConnel & crew, and the federal judiciary.
That leaves the military.
Now I get it.
“Government” is irrelevant, then, only power is relevant.
Enter the age of MOMCOM, both external and internal.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/11/jabber-whut.html
Rcampbell,
I agree that Obama should just call the Teapublicans bluff and let the tax cuts expire for all and use his bully pulpit to call them out for causing the tax increase!
Don’t taxes pay for services?
correction: paid her our of his own SB paid her out of his own
I have a friend who is a member of a union. A couple of weeks ago he had $22.00 taken from his pay check … it was a new tax on a legal perk … the union provides legal services for things like wills, power of attys, etc. Congress decided to tax that perk. (of course the wealthy can’t afford any new taxes)
Guess what his opinion of Obama’s latest tax compromise is … now multiply that by a few hundred thousand members of this union and figure what that does to Obama’s chances at a second term.
The thing he finds most maddening is that he’s never used the perk. He had power of attys and a new will drawn up in July but he didn’t like any of the lawyers the union had on call so found his own and paid her our of his own pocket.
Talk to him about tax cuts for the wealthy and Obama’s concern for the middle class … you’ll get an ear-full. He used to be what one might call “a good democrat” … now he calls himself an “independent” for, as far as he’s concerned, the Democratic Party, which helped in initiating this newest tax, is no longer working for him but actively against him.
He is disenfranchised due to inadequate access to representation within his government.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that all the public pronouncements about the size of the national debt over the next 10 years assume that ALL the tax rates go back to pre-2001 levels 1/1/11. If I’m correct, even the President’s idea of extending the rates only for those making under $250K will have a pretty dramatic affect on increasing the debt.
The GOP will frame the issue as a huge tax increase. The Democrats can frame it as preventing a huge debt increase. That should be acceptable for the Democrat’s base, many or most of the independents and presumably the teabaggers. That looks like a win for the President, if only he’ll fight for it.
I personally would prefer to see all the rates expire with no exceptions.
Read the whole article, nal. Good post. It addresses the “racial McCarthyism” that bdaman posts on this blog nearly everyday. It is more complicated for Obama because of what Fox News has done with the he is muslim rhetoric among other things.
I agree with Swarthmore mom. He has the opportunity to stand up and do the right thing and probably get re-elected,but he will have to step directly into the fray and tell Mr. Orange Skin, No tax cuts for the wealthy,period.
I don’t know if Obama will be able to step up or not. I don’t see any signs of it yet. Clinton stepped up and won a second term so who knows. The republican alternatives have me ready to leave the country.
No surprise here
“Can Obama play hardball?”
One must have a skeletal structure including a healthy spine to play a contact sport in addition to the will to act.
Obama has jelly-bones and a will to capitulate in addition to a complete disregard for the 4th Amendment.
Play hardball?
The manifest masturbation jokes are Legion.