The Republicans don’t want to compromise on any level, fine, default, and it’s on the heads of intransigent conservatives.
This issue is like The Berlin Airlift, if the democrats give in they will never be able to stop retreating.
I teleported Tricky Dick back from 1972, and Obama wanted him to help with that, but Nixon refused to help someone so far to the right of himself.
Insist on revenue increase to match the cuts, and invoke the 14th when they didn’t give. Also, use the bully pulpit to make sure (as he did) that everybody knows who was protecting the rich/corporate.
But the Dems still have cards they haven’t played. To begin with, the Dems should go one step further than the Pubs in cutting spending, starting with all the stuff that causes the shift of money from blue states to red states:
FEMA - the blue states would be better off creating their own insurance policies. The tornado and hurricane prone parts of the country tend to be conservative. Florida doesn’t send me a dividend when their weather is good, so why am I picking up the tab for their bad weather?
Agricultural subsidies
Oil depletion allowances
Education subsidies
Unneeded military bases
Highway funding
The red states have declared war on the blue states, so fuck 'em. Maybe when there are enough poor, rural white people staving to death in the south like there was before the New Deal they will decide that economic issues are more important than stopping gay marriage and banning Sharia law.
California would be solvent if they weren’t sending money off to the Federal government, but Mississippi would be even more of a hell hole than it is now.
But they can (and could have) allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire without a vote.
And I believe in that case, he allowed those cuts to stand in exchange for unemployment extensions (which my sister is inordinately grateful to have survived on - and she’s back to work.)
Not only are tax hikes not necessary they would hurt the economy at a time when it can’t take any more hits. We have 16.6% unemployment in this country and 1 in 5 mortgages are upside down. Both houses and both parties understand this.
The deal breaker is not taxes, it’s the date when the next debt ceiling vote comes up. Republicans want it to occur before the next election and the President does not.
Over the last two decades a fierce meme has taken root in those who vote D that Democratic politicans are “weak” or give in to Republicans but deep down inside lurks a bleeding heart liberal just like them. They’re not the elite corporate toadies they appear to be, they just have to compromise with those mean old Republicans! That isn’t true. When they vote for war, or to gut some program you like, they actually want that. They’ve been doing it for quite some time, so stop pretending to be so shocked.
That’s where they are NOW. That wasn’t where they were before the Dems threw themselves into a brick wall one too many times.
Obama even got on air repeatedly to say you cannot put this all on the poorest among us. I’d like to think he still believes that. The top 5% of this country could easily afford to lose some of their tax hidey-holes, and HELP US.
Edited to reflect that the support of his base has eroded, as he has given the repubs everything they want, and more, asking nothing in return - and they’re still saying no. Now it’s about doing the same thing again in six months. Well, fuck them.
We kept slashing taxes and we have high unemployment. Obviously this whole lower taxes = more jobs canard hasn’t panned out.
But taxes = revenue, revenue can absorb some of the debt without slashing government spending, which will equate to more lost jobs and a smaller economy.
Exactly. Every time some wanna be rich person sobs “If you raise the taxes, the rich will leave the country” I retort Fine. The sooner the better. Or aren’t they done hoovering all the wealth out of our country yet? Greedy buggers.
But the job creators are safe! And here come the jobs!
I have 2 theories, neither is terribly optimistic
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Obama is moderately conservative, and believes that we need to cut spending right now, so he doesn’t mind compromising away the “no spending cuts” position
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Obama and the Democrats know the Republicans won’t support anything they propose, so they propose everything the Republicans want, so the Republicans look super partisan when they refuse.
Put me in the camp of thinking that Obama as pre-negotiated away much more than he should have. This is the time for Keynesian stimuluous and the original stimulous package was too small and weak. Now we’re going to cut government spending when the private sector and consumer spending has not picked up to a decent level, which will cause unemployment and mortgage defaults to increase. I fear the Republicans think they have hit the lottery - get the limit increased, cut taxes, and make it all about jobs in 12 months during the election cycle, and then elect more wingnuts to really make the US a banana republic politically and economically.
That said, Obama is still the most fiscally responsible adult in the room compared with Bush, the TP, the Republican’s in the House and Senate.
Luckily, the White House has never proposed raising taxes right now. Obama’s proposal was to raise them only for upper income folks in two years.
No, we haven’t continually slashed taxes and the government can lower it’s payroll without cutting jobs. Reduce everybody’s salary just like a business would do if it was in trouble. It can always be reversed when things improve.
We’re experiencing a housing bubble that coincided with bad investment paper associated with mortgages. It was a double whammy that has to work itself out. The housing bubble was an inevitable event because housing prices rose at 3 times the inflation rate while at the same time excess houses were being built. It was so big it brought down major financial institutions.
What we didn’t need was the financial burden of the health care bill on businesses. It’s not their function to provide health care. That should be removed entirely as a required function particularly in the middle of a financial crisis.
You know, when the first clause of a post is completely inaccurate, nobody bothers to read the rest.
And what percent of the Federal budget do you think salaries are, particularly if you exclude the military?
According to my calculations civilian total payroll is 5% of the Federal budget, reducing it by 10% would save us 1/2 of 1%, but of course that would also result in lower tax revenues so the net affect would be less. Especially since all govt workers are overpaid and rich people pay too much in taxes (did I get my talking points right?)
No, no, no! It’s “job creators”, not “rich people”. Write that 100 times on the chalkboard.