While much of the Left online, in terms of both bloggers, and commenters, are very ambivalent about the Obama-GOP tax cut deal, and in fact, many of these same people wanted to let the tax cuts expire completely if they could not be extended for the middle class only, the rest of America wants the tax cut deal enacted. Gallup Polling Matters:
The most important thing to recognize: Americans want some type of action taken before the end of the year to avoid all Bush era tax cuts expiring. Americans do not want the tax cuts to go away as a result of the inability of the warring factions in Washington to agree on what to do about them.
66% of Americans support the extension of the tax cuts
66% of Americans support the extension of unemployment benefits
78% of moderate Republicans support the extension of the tax cuts
62% of moderate Republicans support the extension of unemployment benefits
64% of moderate Democrats support the extension of the tax cuts
85% of moderate Democrats support the extension of unemployment benefits
So could we now please see an end to the endless bitching and the “why didn’t Obama let them all expire” mantra? We online are not the entirety of the American public.
The Professional Left wouldn't be fretting about little things like this if we had commitments from the guy in charge that he was the great defender of Social Security.
Might even be popular.
Now if only Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald could learn to be charming [a never-gonna-happen scenario].
Chris Weigant on the difference between Obama's leadership style during the health care reform debates, and his leadership style now:
The White House was criticized (by me, as well as others) during the endless healthcare reform negotiation, for not putting some skin in the game. Obama and the West Wing folks seemed content to sit back and let congressional Democrats have all the time in the world to (quite publicly) have a fight among themselves. The White House never took control of the process at all, instead remaining content to nudge Congress every so often with bland “Gosh, we’d sure like to see some progress” sorts of statements, or vague “goals” issued with no specifics attached. The process took forever, as Democrats haggled among themselves almost endlessly.
Now compare what just happened. At the start of the lame duck Congress, Republicans were presenting a unified front. Democrats, as usual, couldn’t even agree on a single plan in their own caucus. Two competing plans emerged (actually more emerged, but two made it to the top of the heap). Nancy Pelosi got the House to pass one of these fairly quickly, and then (reportedly) the White House pushed hard on Harry Reid to hold a vote on the top two plans in the Senate, as a “test vote.” Both of these only managed to get 53 votes — they couldn’t even get all the Senate Democrats to support either one of them.
After showing they didn’t have nearly enough votes in the Senate, and facing an absolute brick wall from Republicans, the White House sat down and (fairly quickly) hashed out a final deal with the Republicans. Congressional Democrats didn’t even enter in the equation, if truth be told.
Which is my point. This deal was worked out in almost exactly the opposite fashion that Obama has been operating for a long time. Instead of deferring to Democrats in Congress — in the hopes that they will get their act together, in some period of time less than “forever” — Obama led the negotiations. These negotiations were carried out with remarkably few leaks, and a deal was struck which is actually a lot better than was rumored just hours before it was announced. The conventional wisdom floating around inside the Beltway was that Obama was going to get a short extension of unemployment benefits, and not much more. But the plan announced was far more sweeping, meaning perhaps the White House negotiators are better than people generally think they are. Obama got a lot more than anyone was willing to give him credit for beforehand, and he did get some concessions from the Republicans in doing so — which nobody really expected. (Boldface mine)
On Bill O’Reilly’s show on Tuesday, an unlikely source, in the form of Charles Krauthammer, pushed back on the “professional left” [Firebaggers], and said that Obama won the tax cut deal, just like it was an historic achievement that he got Obamacare passed, in spite of the bitter disappointment voiced by the Firebagger crowd. He also said that the “professional left” misunderstands” both Obama, and the magnitude of his achievements. I agree.
I think that this “professional left” misunderstands the president and what he's achieved in the same way that they totally underestimated and misunderstood his achievement in passing Obamacare, which from the point of view of the left, I think is historic.
Look, in the deal with McConnell over the tax cuts, Obama won. He just got the Republicans to agree to a near trillion dollar, 900 billion dollar stimulus. A second stimulus, all of it paid by Chinese money we borrow. None of it will be paid for, blowing a huge hole in the debt. And he did this with out even calling it a stimulus. And he does this, this is gonna be 900 billion, almost all in tax cuts, some of it in unemployment benefits, which will be dispensed over the next 2 years, which just happen to be the 2 years in the run-up to Obama's reelection.
A chart from the Wonk Room illustrates the most basic difference between the two parties and the gains made in this plan.
The chart aptly illustrates how many people benefitted [millions] from Democratic priorities vs Republican priorities, as well as noting the total cost in billions.
On the Democratic side, we get an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class, a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits, a 1-year payroll tax cut of 2.5% [employee side only], and extended tax credits from the 2009 Recovery Act. These components of the deal will benefit 156 million people, and cost $214 billion in deficit spending.
On the Republican side, they get an extension of the tax cuts for the rich, and a 1-year cut in the estate tax, and those components, the Republicans priorities, benefit 4.8 million people at a cost of $133 billion in deficit spending.
This was an amazing press conference, with an engaged, fiesty, caring president.Transcript below the video.
Press Conference by the President
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
2:25 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Before I answer a few questions, I just wanted to say a few words about the agreement we’ve reached on tax cuts.
My number one priority is to do what’s right for the American people, for jobs, and for economic growth. I’m focused on making sure that tens of millions of hardworking Americans are not seeing their paychecks shrink on January 1st just because the folks here in Washington are busy trying to score political points.
He was referring to the Republican hostage takers. The hostages, were of course, the millions of people affected by the unemployment benefits extension, along with the middle class tax increase which would occur in January were this deal not made.
Fact Sheet on the Framework Agreement on Middle Class Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance
The framework agreement announced by the President secures vital tax relief and investments in our workers that will create jobs and accelerate economic growth. The plan has three key accomplishments:
Working families will not lose their tax cut. A typical working family faced a tax increase of over $3,000 on January 1st. That’s avoided under this framework agreement, and working families won’t see their tax cuts go away next year.
Focused on high impact job creation measures. The framework agreement includes some of the best measures for jumpstarting growth and job creation, including a full year of emergency unemployment insurance benefits, an about $120 billion payroll tax cut for working families and a continuation of tax credits for working families. This is on top of growth generated by extension of the middle-class income tax rates.
A senior spokesman for the White House told ABC News that they [the White House] wanted a fight, but Congressional Democrats “wouldn’t throw a punch”.
"We wanted a fight, the House didn't throw a punch," a senior White House official tells ABC News, pointing out that for months before the 2010 midterm elections, President Obama was making the case against the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans. "The House wouldn't vote before the Senate, and the Senate was afraid they'd lose a vote on it."
"It was like the Jets versus Sharks except there weren't any Jets," the official said. "Senator Schumer says he wants a fight? He couldn't hold his caucus together."
"This isn't a debate in a lab somewhere," the official continued. "People's taxes were going to go up, and then we were going to have a Senate with a slimmer margin and House under Republican control."
Another senior White House official said that under the new Congress, it was likely all the White House would have been able to get as a concession was maybe seven months of extended unemployment insurance, as opposed to the current deal -- with a payroll tax reduction, business write-offs for investments, and continued child and college tuition tax credits.
The spokesman also indicated that despite the rage coming from Democrats, this was a good deal, emphasis mine.
1) We wanted a fight on these tax cuts, and Congressional Democrats never took up the charge and held a vote;
2) This is a good deal -- and we weren't willing to let taxes go up on middle class Americans, or to deprive the unemployed of insurance benefits, just to prove a political point.
For the past few weeks there’s been a lot of talk around Washington about taxes and there’s been a lot of political positioning between the two parties. But around kitchen tables, Americans are asking just one question: Are we going to allow their taxes to go up on January 1st, or will we meet our responsibilities to resolve our differences and do what’s necessary to speed up the recovery and get people back to work?
Now, there’s no doubt that the differences between the parties are real and they are profound. Ever since I started running for this office I've said that we should only extend the tax cuts for the middle class. These are the Americans who’ve taken the biggest hit not only from this recession but from nearly a decade of costs that have gone up while their paychecks have not. It would be a grave injustice to let taxes increase for these Americans right now. And it would deal a serious blow to our economic recovery.
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