Why Democrats Will Probably Swallow The Tax Cut Compromise

Unless of course R’s claim that unemployment dropped and the economy improved solely due to the Bush tax cuts.

Well this is all flabbergasting. Easy stuff first:

How is Mitch McConnell not as cynical as Democrats claim? The whole “Obama one term thing” isn’t some sort of Democratic party creation. They’re words McConnell used.

To beat Obama in 2012, McConnell and his party will have to raise a lot of money. Obama’s fundraising machine is damned strong. You might be interested to learn that the top 2% of income earners have a lot of money! Might they not reward the Republicans for delivering them the tax rates that they want? Do you really think that McConnell believes that delivering for the upper crust strengthens the hand of his opponents in 2012?

Zandi is a good economist and he’s also well within the consensus here that from a GDP standpoint, and an employment standpoint, the compromise is better than nothing and that trading the current high income tax rate in favor of the stimulus Obama got is also better.

But… 8.7% unemployment in 2012 is still very high!

Unless it makes it more easy to achieve.

“Which Democrats would rather enter the 2012 election season with unemployment still at 9.9 percent, but the comfort of knowing that they held the line on tax cuts for the rich? Which Democrats would rather enter the 2012 election season with unemployment falling to 8.7 percent, knowing that they gave up the fight over tax cuts for the rich? I thought so.”

All you have to do is decouple unemployment insurance from the billionaire tax cuts and your problem goes away. One does not imply the other, no matter how high you raise the danger level.

How many Republicans want to end unemployment insurance at this time, if billionaires don’t get their unpaid for tax cut? Is the amount of money Bill Gates has in his bank account really the only priority the right has?

Is the amount of money Bill Gates has in his bank account really the only priority the right has?

I am surprised you have to ask.

I’m just wondering why the media hasn’t called out the Republicans for being the terrorists they are…

hmmm………

Michael Scherer:
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Just so that I have this clear:
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You’re reporting that Mark Zandi has predicted that

“Bush-era tax cuts extended under $250,000, AMT patched, Estate Tax restored, as well as popular business and R&D tax cuts. He also assumed a one-year extension of tax cuts for the wealthy”

will leave the country with

“average 2011 unemployment of 9.9 percent and a GDP that grows 2.8 percent”

?
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That seems to indicate this economist finds that the Bush tax cuts, AMT, etc aren’t the faintest bit stimulative, given the magnitude of recessionary forces.
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In other words, GOP policy prescriptions for growing the economy are completely wrong?
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Do I understand you correctly?

Zandi actually recommends keeping the high end tax cuts in place, since “affluent households account for a disproportionate share of consumer spending and have grown especially sensitive to their financial condition in the wake of the Great Recession.” He also worries about the impact on small business of raising those rates. But he agrees that tax breaks for the rich are among the least effective policies for stimulating the economy. He gives extending all the Bush tax cuts a $0.35 bang for the buck impact on the GDP, compared with $1.60 for unemployment benefit extensions. Many economists, including those at the White House, speculate that Bush tax cuts for the rich are even less effective than that as stimulus. One number a White House aide told me was that UI was nine times more effective than top rate extension as stimulus, which would put the top rate multiple between $0.10 and $0.20.

Must read!

By James K. Galbraith

“In the long run we need to recognize that the fate of the entire country is at stake. Its governance can’t be entrusted indefinitely to incompetents, hacks, and lobbyists. Large countries can and do fail, they have done so in our own time. And the consequences are very grave: drastic declines in services, in living standards, in life expectancies, huge increases in social tension, in repression, and in violence. These are the consequences of following through with crackpot ideas such as those embodied in the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, as Jeff Madrick again outlined, such notions as putting arbitrary limits on the scale of government, or arbitrary limits on the top tax rate affecting the wealthiest Americans.”

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/08/whose_side_is_white_house_on

Thank you so very much for responding to commentary with this additional information, Michael Scherer, it is very helpful.

One would think the fact that Republicans have made the size of Bill Gate’s bank account, “their number one priority” — bigger in importance than the fate of millions of unemployed Americans — that it might garner at least one thread around here. I no longer have any use for Obama, or any Democrat who ends up voting for this bill, but it is unfair the way he is targeted for all the blame and the Republicans don’t get to wear any of it along with him.

It is also hilarious how the media have once again become the willing handmaidens promoting it.

Galbraith:

Beyond this, bold proposals are what we should be advancing now; even when they lose, they have their value. We can talk about job programs; we can talk about an infrastructure bank; we can talk about Juliet Schor’s idea of a four-day work week; we can talk about my idea of expanding Social Security and creating an early retirement option so that people who are older and unemployed or anxious to get out of the labor force can leave on comfortable terms, and so create job openings for younger people who, as we’ve heard today, are facing very long periods of extremely aggravating and frustrating unemployment; we can talk about establishing a systematic program of general revenue sharing to support state and local governments, we can talk about the financial restructuring we so desperately need and that we’ll have to have if we are going to have a country which has a viable private credit system and in which large financial power is not constantly dictating the terms of every political maneuver.

Huh, nothing about sitting out elections to teach Democrats a lesson. But I’m sure if more Republicans take power, those proposals will be front and center.

-Huh, nothing about sitting out elections to teach Democrats a lesson.
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“The Democratic Party has become too associated with Wall Street. This is a fact. It is a structural problem. It seems to me that we as progressives need — this is my personal position — we need to draw a line and decide that we would be better off with an under-funded, fighting progressive minority party than a party marked by obvious duplicity and constant losses on every policy front as a result of the reversals in our own leadership.”

I know the b!tch of the “professional left” all too well, jc. You know I do.
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Now tell me how punishing Democrats for their real and egregious sins, which by default empowers “conservatives” and Republicans, gets us a better government. That’s all I want to know, I already know why you hate Obama and the Democrats.

There is nothing more threatening to an establishment party, in a two-party system, than the threat of a third party. Remember how ballistic centrists went when Nader was running? The Left has nothing to lose in creating a third party. Their only role now, in the democratic party, is to serve as a punching bag for the middle, and to offer their money and support at election time. If Obama wants to use the Left as an internal enemy, let’s make sure we are his enemy and a real threat.

Sorry, just wasn’t sure if you caught that passage, and at the moment I had a koala on my chest, so only one hand was available.
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Here’s the rub, Shep. We’re not getting better government now. The GOP’s agenda is being achieved even when they’re not in power. The government may be different under Obama (or Reid or Pelosi) but it’s not better and it’s not preventing what you know is coming down the pike. So, as someone sentient during LBJ, perhaps the dems are offering just enough resistance to see you into the sunset, but for those who are younger these marginal corrections (and I hesitate to even us the word) will not be enough to prevent collapse.
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IOW, if all the DFHs continue to suck it up and vote Team D for the next 20 years, given current trends, I still say dystopia is en route.
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If you can acknowledge that much, then the question is how do you (if it’s even possible) try to head off looming catastrophe. I tell you one thing, the left back in LBJ’s day would have had some ideas.

Completely off the same topic that has been discussed on about a dozen threads but has anyone else been getting a ton of pop ups here lately?
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Particularly a commercial.

I am now in a state of vacillation, giving Obama still more time. I had previously called this tax agreement an appeasement rather than a compromise. The extension for the zillionaires is really the big sticking point. I watched Obama on the teevee state that the Repubs will have to answer for that down the line. I would hope so, but given the brain dead American electorate, I would doubt it. In the end, it will all depend on the state of the economy in 2012, and as others point out, an unemployment rate above 7% is not likely to redeem this appeasement to the right wing, and they will be the beneficiaries (remember the brain dead electorate) in the election. So, I am willing to give Obama some more time, but am becoming more fearful of a right wing presidency looming.

“If you can acknowledge that much, then the question is how do you (if it’s even possible) try to head off looming catastrophe.”
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Actually, the question on the table is how does punishing Democrats do it. I just can’t seem to get an answer on that, just a bunch of justifications for why they deserve it. It’s not the same thing, you know?

MS, completely OT, but it would be nice to see a discussion on the Wikileaks terrorist web activities.

The Left has nothing to lose in creating a third party.
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I’m not sure that President Gore would agree. In any event, everyone loses when Republicans take power and a third party on the left stands every chance of helping that happen.
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“Their only role now, in the democratic party, is to serve as a punching bag for the middle, and to offer their money and support at election time.”
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I see their role as one to fight like hell for the most progressive policy and be a constant thorn in the side of centrist ideologues and others who stand ready to compromise on public policy for political considerations. Judging by Obama’s presser and the public conversation at the moment, I think they’re doing a pretty good job. It doesn’t mean we’re going to beat the oligarchs every time or even very often, since they own most of the tools of the political war, but that’s the war worth fighting, rather than liberals against Democrats.

“The Left has nothing to lose in creating a third party.
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I’m not sure that President Gore would agree. In any event, everyone loses when Republicans take power and a third party on the left stands every chance of helping that happen.”
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That is pretty much the point isn’t it? It doesn’t take many liberals voting a third party to insure the Democratic Party loses, if they insist on using the Left as a punching bag. Al Gore was the last one to reap the rewards when Clinton used that technique. One of these days they might include the Left in power, in addition to asking them to raise money and votes.

President Gore shot himself in the foot, but anyway, I’m going to ever vote for a third party or a Republican? No, I’d shoot myself in the foot first. Thankfully, I have no guns and am not a gun advocate. When I vote, I vote straight Dem, if there are no Dems, I vote Libertarian, if there are no other choices except Repubs, I don’t vote.

“One of these days they might include the Left in power, in addition to asking them to raise money and votes.”
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Yes, well, in the long run we are all dead. How does it happen, specifically? How long does it take? Who gets killed?

So, if I can understand the quandary properly…
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Movement liberals want
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A) to discipline the Democratic Party
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B) to elect a non-Republican President
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C) to elect a President who is at least as non-conservative as Obama
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Is that right?
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Do I have that correct?
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(…those of you who made it to the final minutes of this Sunday’s Virtually Speaking know where I’m going with this…)

Anyone advocate for any candidate?
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Anyone? Make an affirmative case for someone?
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The affirmative argument has been made for trying to work the Democrats to the left (elect better Democrats every two years, try to make enough noise to move BHO), who is the liberal 3rd party candidate that those who are opting out hoping for?
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And why no interest in achieving something easier, that is electing more liberal candidates locally? Why the focus on only the White House?

formerlyjames I hear you on the “just stay home” stance. That seems the only logical choice most times. That is what many Obama voters just did, stay home. Obama’s reaction to that, his new strategy, so they say, is to replace all those votes with the “independent” vote. That is the lesson he took from the last election. Clinton did the same thing. It is necessary for the Left to become the imaginary enemy, in order to fulfill the responsibilities of the role.

Derek, when I say I don’t vote for Repubs when that is the only option, I don’t mean I stay home. Here in right wing Texas, some offices have only Repubs on offer. I mean I just ignore those, but I vote when there is a choice other than religious fascists.

SZ I know you made a case for Bloomberg, what did you think of TAP’s piece on his “Contempt for Democracy”?
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(I tried twice to link but Swampland disappeared my comment)

ok, I will start if anyone wants to follow. I am ambivalent about the leaks on the US government. I haven’t seen anything that isn’t common knowledge, or that doesn’t reveal dishonesty. But, Amazon I respect even more than the US establishment. Don’t mess with Amazon. They are my friend. And I use Mastercard, part of the financial/industrial conspiracy to interact with Amazon. Wikileaks will turn me into an adversary by messing with Amazon.

I don’t know that a third party would necessarily take away would-be democrat voters or weaken the D party. Look at the Teaparty. They are dictating to republicans the need to change, they are influencing elections and candidates. Couldn’t a liberal movement influence the democrats to embrace liberal policies? -or they’ll find candidates that will.

“That is what many Obama voters just did, stay home. Obama’s reaction to that, his new strategy, so they say, is to replace all those votes with the “independent” vote. That is the lesson he took from the last election. Clinton did the same thing.”
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Seems to me what you’re saying is that when Democrats lose, whatever the reason, they react by moving to the right, the exact opposite of the planning-for outcome when liberals make sure that they lose. In any event, the government surely does and that’s very bad for the republic.
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“The affirmative argument has been made for trying to work the Democrats to the left (elect better Democrats every two years, try to make enough noise to move BHO), who is the liberal 3rd party candidate that those who are opting out hoping for?”
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And, just to be clear, I’m not sure that the latter couldn’t be one effective way to do the former, as long as the liberal candidate, primary, general third-party, whatever, doesn’t end up splitting the Democratic vote.

..also, I don’t think we’ll see any move to the left until election finance and lobbying rules are changed. That, to me, is step-one. The Dems (and Repubs) have not moved so far to the right for ideological reasons. They’ve moved because big money gets you elected, gets you financed, gets you face-time on popular TV shows. That is the “base” most everyone in Congress caters to. Unless the system is changed, don’t expect governance to change.

stuartzechman I’ve never asked you exactly what your definition of “Movement” Liberal is but I can tell you my idea of what Liberals want.

I understand Liberalism to be about the application of Reason to the Polis. It assumes public service can be managed, using rational methods. My view of the founders is they were mainly empiricists, given to inductive reasoning.

Given my assumptions, it saddens me to see reason, in economics and politics, now categorized as “extremism”, the “fringe”, “libtardness”, symbolic gestures, and so on, resulting naturally, in our current incoherent economic policies.
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Since “liberals,” or empiricists, are portrayed by the media and party elites as “radical extremists” and even if they compose almost half the Democratic party, I’m not sure what they can do to try and get the parties attention, mainly to engage in a conversation about acting rationally.
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Someone pointed out there isn’t a single person in the Obama administration that has a relationship with the Left. I don’t see many Obama apologists working full time in the media either. There is almost no connection and now he feels compelled to stage the Left in the role of villain, in the great opera of false equivalence. I haven’t seen this much rage on the Left of the party in 20 years.

“Why Democrats Will Probably Swallow”
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FTFY.

pintortwo: two good points in 7.16 and 7.18. If we look at FDR’s presidency, seems to me that there were competing voices, sort of on the left (i.e, Huey Long, Townsend). FDR was able to coopt (and elevate) the best of those ideas (Social Security being one of them). So in theory a third party or primary competition may not be crippling for the dems. I believe it is the sort of conversation we desperately need to have. One of my (many) problems with the Obama administration is that we have opportunities for great national discussions and never have them. How will people know what you stand for if you never articulate it? If all you have to say is in response to some move the Repubs have made already. I think that conversation has to be with input from the left, not the center.
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Also, great point about campaign funding. How can you possibly bite the hand that feeds? The rules are set up to encourage furthering corporatist interests. If we can’t break that cycle, the rest of what we want to accomplish will always fall on deaf ears.
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I’ve really enjoyed some of the threads from the last few days on these topics. Thanks everybody, I’m learning a bunch.

“And, just to be clear, I’m not sure that the latter couldn’t be one effective way to do the former, as long as the liberal candidate, primary, general third-party, whatever, doesn’t end up splitting the Democratic vote.”
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I ask, again, who is this candidate?
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Heck after all these threads, absent an actual human being, I’ll take a specific description of this candidate.

“I ask, again, who is this candidate?”
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I’d say you’re about as likely to get an answer to your question as I am to mine. Obama will not be primaried. Third-party challenge to the entire two-party apparatchik? I repeat your question: “who is this candidate?”

Mike Bloomberg?

yeah: the stimulus was an abject failure, but the Bush tax cuts saved the country.

yeah, and I believed the Romer and Bernstein projections too.

O-K, after 5 hours in Osaka, we’ll see if this thread is still kicking.
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“Actually, the question on the table is how does punishing Democrats do it. I just can’t seem to get an answer on that, just a bunch of justifications for why they deserve it. It’s not the same thing, you know?”
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Well, as you choose to frame it, that’s the question. My contention is that partisan loyalty is even more unlikely to deliver better government to the United States. So, while I can’t gaze into my crystal ball and say that challenging the democratic party mercilessly from within or without is going to be enough to reverse (your words) the corporate coup d’état, I can guarantee you that the present rigged system is set up to protect the ruling class’ interests.
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If you think the status quo is sustainable, fine, this discussion is pointless. If you don’t, the burden is just as much on you to illustrate how this gets better going FWD.
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I think the corruptive rot plaguing our government is akin to mestasized cancer, and aromatherapy ain’t going to root it out of the body politic.
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As for the who, build the movement with a clear & concise platform, and leadership will come. Waiting around for the next Dean or Obama to build a shiny grassroots movement for you reflects passivity.

Stuart:
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Movement liberals want
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A) to discipline the Democratic Party
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As much as spanking Harry Reid’s wizened ass with a ruler inspires my fantasies, no. It’s not about punishing them. It’s about bending them to our will or replacing them.
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B) to elect a non-Republican President
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No, we just did that and it’s “demonstrably” not worked out that well. I won’t be satisifed by electing another centrist, with either a D or an I next to his name. If that’s the only goal, it’s not worth the fight.
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C) to elect a President who is at least as non-conservative as Obama
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And, finally, no again. Liberals want to elect a full-throated liberal president. However vain the effort may look, that’s the battle we want.
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What Bloomie has do with any of that is beyond me.

BTW, something I just read by John Caruso springs to mind:
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“Speaking generally, this is how it works: most people have some line they won’t cross, and for too many of them 1) anyone whose line is farther than their own is a sellout and 2) anyone whose line stops before theirs is a purist. Their position, and theirs alone, defines the acceptable point of compromise between principle and pragmatism. Or as George Carlin put it: anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.”
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And Derek, you’ll appreciate this if you’ve never seen it:
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http://www.distantocean.com/2010/10/democratic-blame-calculus.html

“I repeat your question: “who is this candidate?’”
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Probably no one or someone who can’t possibly win. So what?
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We need to voice our discontent in meaningful ways, that is through voting. If I am going to waste my vote any way I’ll do it in a way that will hurt those that displease me.
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Call me a fool if you will, but I have been a fool already.

Earth to Time magazine and every other arm of the Democrat party (e.g., ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, A-Mess-NBC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News, ESPN U, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Français, ESPN Radio, ESPN Magazine, ESPN in HD, ESPN in 3D, et al.):

There were no “Bush-era tax cuts”. All that Bush did was partially repeal the massive, redistributionist, Clinton tax increases.

Bush should have repealed all of the Clinton tax increases, particularly the tax rate increases on those who paid 70% (SEVENTY PERCENT!!!) of all federal income taxes in 2008, to wit: those who earned over $113,000.

Here’s the link showing who is actually paying America’s bills. Note that it ain’t those earning under $113,000 per year. http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

And why no interest in achieving something easier, that is electing more liberal candidates locally?

Because whoever I might elect to Congress, everything they try to accomplish will be blocked by 40 Senators from flyover country.

@textee, I’ve heard reports and have been reading that this “deal” between Obama and the republicans will actually raise the tax bill for those people earning $20,000 and for couples earning $40,000. Since I am at that income level, I am not happy. Why should I have to pay even more in taxes (which at my income level I can not afford) so that the “millions for millionaires” program can continue? All of the tax cuts should be allowed to expire, or else lower my taxes as well. But hey, somebody has got to pay the bills. This is just another way to put the burden onto the backs of the people who can least afford it.

“What Bloomie has do with any of that is beyond me”
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“stuartzechman
December 3, 2010
at 10:33 am
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Well…
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I’m starting to think that a primary isn’t a good idea, but I could be convinced.
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That doesn’t mean I want to vote for Obama, though.
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So I am actually thinking about a draft Bloomberg campaign”
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That’s why I ask about Bloomberg.

jcapan thanks for the link which is funny and sad, at the same time. I hope and pray we can give the compromising clowns something to complain about in 2012.
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What you need to successfully primary Obama or push the country left:
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[!] You need to convince the American people that liberalism is not only not evil, but a viable & desirable option.
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Doing that, you need to convince Americans that Conservatism has betrayed them. This should be an easy case to make, if its made consistently over several years (4 – 10), consistently on television & the internet.
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You also need a movement. Someone brought up the Tea Party. I’d argue for a more rational movement, but as movements go you can only guide them so far. But, you do need something to organize them and move them forward. Taking a look at the LGBT community you might get some ideas of how to push a rather unpopular idea that really shouldn’t be unpopular.
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The first thought is to start staging awareness. The LGBT community uses purple shirts, jeans day, day of silence to great effect. The tea party sent in tea bags. The Liberals need a gimmick that works the same way, but it needs to be clearly tied to an issue. For instance, we’re against tax cuts for the rich, what is a symbol we could all wear one day to show unity? We’re for expelling DADT, what could we all wear or do to express that and make people more knowledgeable.
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Start out at the base with ideas that need pushed forward, be consistent, be organized and use the internet to keep things going. Use that base to elect local leaders who can show on the home front that this movement can help the community. From there build up into state legislatures and try to bust onto the national stage, whether its part of the Democratic party or has to be absorbed like the Tea Party was.
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But it has to be built up from the bottom because ultimately getting the presidency without getting the legislature is entirely pointless. And getting the legislature without getting public opinion is also worthless.
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As far as Bloomberg, he and Trump, are both clearly signalling they are thinking about 2012 runs. Bloomberg gave a speech last night. Trump’s been talking up the media. At the very least you are going to see a movement from the center very soon that is “anti-fringe”
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A movement from the center might be what’s needed right now, just to get things done. But while that’s going on the arguments should definitely be made for liberalism and the movement ought to be restarted.

“My contention is that partisan loyalty is even more unlikely to deliver better government to the United States.”
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Then I’m afraid this is where the discussion must end, my friend. A Democratically-controlled Congress is definitely better for the country than a Republican-controlled one and an Obama/Biden White House is certainly preferable, on likely outcome, to a McCain/Palin presidency. One can only imagine, if the White House hadn’t been stolen from Al Gore, what the country might look like today. Those are the choices we had and we either make the better ones or suffer the consequences of the worse choice, even if we let others make it for us.
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Voting your pique simply isn’t a rational choice.

NewsBusters| Blogged Too Soon? TIME Writer: Dems ‘Will Probably Swallow the Tax Cut Compromise’
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/12/09/blogged-too-soon-time-writer-dems-will-probably-swallow-tax-cut-compro