If Obama came on SMDB and said he had an offer, the proper response would be, “Cite?”
There’s no cite. There’s no plan. There never was a plan. A plan that only exists in the President’s head clearly does not count. But even if you disagree, my argument is entirely within the range of legitimate viewpoints, and thus the ad hominem attack on me was uncalled for, and premature to boot.
And he bent over backwards to accomodate Republicans, who were using it to hold unemployment benefits hostage, and extended the tax cut for all.
The grand bargain was agreed to by John Agent Orange Boehner, who couldn’t deliver his own caucus.
You’re misunderstanding. Making a temporary deal to put off a fight till later is not an agenda change, it’s a cease-fire.
I cited examples of Bill Clinton actually changing course after the GOP won Congress. Obama keeping the same position while making tactical advances and retreats in defense of that same position it not changing course.
Boehner initially agreed in principle to the foggy outlines Obama was proposing, which involved unspecified entitlement cuts, in exchange for small revenue increases. Once that was agreed to, presumably they would have moved on to hammering out specifics. But what happened was not Boehner failing to deliver his caucus. That’s the Democrats’ side of the story. the Republicans say the President moved the goalposts, wanted more revenue.
Now I can concede that the Republicans could have just been lying. But it is quite plausible given the President’s unwillingness to share his offer with the public or even fellow Democrats that he never intended to offer a deal, and when the Republicans unexpectedly took “yes” for an answer, he moved the goalposts to get back to “no”.
But again, if we’re using SMDB standards, there is no Obama offer that can be cited. It doesn’t exist.
Did the republicans change course when they were routed in 2008? No they did not, they doubled down, dug there heels in and held their breath until that Kenyan was out of office.
Drop the double standards dude. Your agenda is showing.
The Bush tax cuts were extended for everyone, not just those making less than 250k. You don’t believe that was a concession to Republicans?
Speaking of cites that don’t exist…
No double standard. The GOP did change, at least in the way they thought they’d gone wrong. The GOP thought, rightly or wrongly, that they lost because they had gotten away from their principles. The Tea Party-led GOP is much more principled than the old GOP, so they did change.
Now if the Democrats claimed they lost in 2010 because they weren’t liberal enough, I’d think that’s badly wrong, but I would at least understand their motivations. Instead, I get the impression they thought the 2010 race was just a temper tantrum by the public that we’ll just get over by 2012. The fact that a lot of the 2010 losers are running again and the Democrats kept the same leadership after the 2010 debacle seems to strongly suggest that they did not take the voters’ will very seriously.
I was talking about a course change, not necessarily just concessions. And in any case, this is a bad example because it’s not permanent law, it was just a temporary way to kick the can down the road.
Bill Clinton didn’t make a deal with Republicans to reform welfare for a year, he signed a bill to reform it forever(which Obama partially rolled back, a rather funny thing for a supposed moderate to do).
Bill Clinton didn’t make a deal to cut spending for one year. he made a deal to balance the budget in ten.
Bill Clinton didn’t make a deal to cut taxes for one year. He made a deal to cut taxes permanently.
With the exception of welfare reform, those items were things Bill Clinton did not support before 1994. But he recognized that the public had voted in a different party to run Congress, and so he changed his approach to governing. No more health care reform, no more tax increases. Instead, small bore issues everyone could agree on, tax cuts, and spending cuts. THAT’s changing course.
Ok, so when the GOP loses an election it is only a referendum on them and that they were not conservative enough, but has nothing to do with the Democratic agenda at all. And when the Democrats lose an election, its also because they were not conservative enough and needed to move further right? So no matter what the result of the election, in your mind the answer is for the losing side to move further to the right?
You don’t consider this a double standard?
adaher: the fiscal year 2013 budget submitted by the President to Congress contains spending cuts and revenue increases that reach the required $1.3 trillion in savings to eliminate the sequester that is supposed to happen in January.
It contains compromises such as complying with the Budget Control Act’s spending cuts, which had wide bipartisan support, including by the Republican leaders in Congress.
Republicans don’t like the plan, fine. But it is a written plan that deals with the issue, so enough with the “bu-bu-bu-but the plan isn’t written down!” nonsense. Read it yourself.
Earlier you were criticizing Obama for (perceived) flip-flopping. Now you’re criticizing him for not changing course?
We’ve given many examples of Obama making concessions to the Republicans. You can Google it and find hundreds of articles on the subject. Obama has made concessions on taxes, air pollution, even the healthcare reform is essentially a Republican blueprint from the 90’s.
At this point, it shouldn’t even be a point of contention, but somehow it still is. This is not a debate, it’s a Monty Python sketch.
You misunderstand. The Republicans BELIEVE that they lost because they weren’t conservative enough. The Democrats BELIEVE they lost because of “structural reasons” or a voter temper tantrum that will pass? Or maybe not, since I saw no evidence of introspection after the loss, so I can only conjecture. But the Republicans not only have been introspective after their loss, the loss started a civil war within the party that is still ongoing.
The budget reflects the deal actually made, which resulted in sequestration. It is not the “grand bargain” offer.
A grand bargain would have been a permanent resolution, the budget sequestration deal resolves nothing at all. It is the result of intransigence, not the result of a compromise.
His flip flops have not been a sensible triangulation in response to his 2010 defeat. Most of them occurred when the candidate became the President. A simple case of broken promises.
The only flip flop I can think of offhand that came after 2010 was the gay marriage flip flop, which would not be considered changing course to be closer to the Republican position.
So the only way for Obama to please you would be to become more Republican?
How far was it again that the republicans moved to the left after the ass kicking they took in 2008? None farther left, right? Wasn’t that it? None farther?
Oh, that’s right, noone voted for Obama in that election, they were only voting against the republicans, so the answer is move farther right of course.
The answer to everything in adaher’s world, move farther right!
That’s being a little unfairly blunt. A reasonable response to the 2010 loss would be to move to the right a little. Or, if he assumes it’s because of corruption, taking the lead on reform issues would have been a good change of course. After all, running as a different kind of leader was a major part of his appeal. I believe his rejection in 2010 had less to do with his liberalism or perceived liberalism than the fact that he turned out to be just another dishonest politician. And if anything, he’s doubled down on the cynicism.
Because they honestly believe they didn’t lose because they were too conservative.
Actually, changing SOMETHING would be a good idea when you lose an election. You may not agree with the Republicans’ change of course, but there’s no doubt they’ve changed course. Establishment Republicans are falling left and right in primaries. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are still leaders.
I respectufully request that if you don’t know very much about the subject at hand, that you temper your words not to appear as statements of fact.
The President’s budget reflects the spending caps in the bipartisan Budget Control Act PLUS other things (such as allowing tax rates for the very wealthy to increase by modest amounts) that would achieve the $1.2 trillion in savings that are needed to avert sequestration. Those proposals are not part of any deal that was “actually made,” they are proposals to avert sequestration which exists because of the deal actually made.
If the President’s budget were adopted, it would achieve the deficit reduction goals that the supercommittee could not achieve. Now, we know that isn’t going to happen, but Obama’s plan to reduce the deficit and avert sequestration is indeed written down.
Now stop saying that he has no written plan. There is one, you’re just ignoring it.