Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 – and House Democrats don’t have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years – which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
[…]Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we’re-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
The world is turning upside down: Krauthammer thinks Obama is a genius and Kos is comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlin.
Fuck U II: The Duckening
King of the concern trolls: the Cabbage-Hammer!
gypsy howell
Refer to chart in post below for your answer.
jonas
Wait a second! Is Krauthammer saying it’s possible for tax cuts for the wealthy to add to the debt? That’s unpossible!
c u n d gulag
“Sour”Krauthammer opining again.
Well, Chuckles – Obama, which is he? The evil mastermind, or the inept, hapless black buffoon? Make up your mind. Every week you toss out one, then the other.
There was no hiding Kristol, but, how did this guy not make the 30 “Worst Windbags?” Did Hiatt pay them off?
Enquiring minds want to know…
burnspbesq
A double helping of cognitive dissonance, with strange sauce on the side.
Mark-NC
It is a great deal – if you’re part of “the Fox News Party”. No wonder he loves it.
dr. bloor
Kos versus Krauthammer–which is likely to have a better perspective on things? Gee, that’s a tough one.
brantl
When has this brainless fuck been right about anything? I have yet to see it. He’s just Kristol without the simpering smile of self-congratulation.
agrippa
Krauthammer?
He is too ‘clever’ for his own good.
All this is a logical continuation of what has occured previously. If the Congress and WH had done what needed to be done, …..
Make your choice; to me, it looks like damage control.
In Jan 2009, the Washington Democratic leaders, Obama, Pelosi and reid should have had a closed door meeting and determined the legislative priorities, made out the agenda, and went ahead. “Determine what is right; then, go ahead.”
That was not done; what we got was dithering, incompetent deal making and rhetoric.
Very interesting; but, stupid.
jon
It would be nice if voting for a bigger debt was going to be political poison for the Republicans, but it won’t. It would also be nice if the Democrats cared a bit about the debt, but they don’t. But it would be much nicer if the patriotic super rich assholes would buy Treasury Bonds instead of letting the Chinese buy them, since that way we could be owned by rich Americans rather than the Chinese.
Oh wait, it all sucks. Let everyone’s taxes go up, let the poor suffer, and let’s stop piddling around: let the hurting start. That would be the responsible way to get out of the budget mess (and also to politically stick it to the Republicans, though that’s far from being a sure thing.) Instead, Obama is pointedly not doing the Democratic responsible thing and getting spending under control and working towards a surplus. I guess he saw what happened after Clinton left and decided that he was going to be the happy spendy guy who gets elected rather than the guy who makes everything good so the Republicans can fuck it up later. Bipartisan, bitches! You got it. We’re all big spending tax cutters now! Worst of both worlds.
cleek
@jon:
quite true. in fact, the GOP will run, in 2012, on a platform which includes “just look at how the irresponsible Dems raised the debt (or deficit – whichever is polling better that day) in December 2010 !”
nobody will point out that the GOP forced the debt/deficit to increase.
JPL
The NYTimes leads with an article that the President wants to simplify the tax code. A simplified tax code would be more progressive if done right, imo. Our tax rates might look progressive but because of the multitude of deductions that benefit the wealthy, it’s anything but. Ask Buffet.
Roy Greene
American politics, down the rabbit hole, has past the point of no return.
Linda Featheringill
Wow. Krauthammer must be on some gooood meds!
But I have a question. Would this deal actually act as a stimulus? In a major way?
rickstersherpa
Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler again points to the fundamental flaw in the storm and drang. The Democrats and Liberals should have had this debate, and vote last year, certainly before the election. What leverage does Obama have with the Republicans but to give them something that they want (tax cut extensions for rich people) for something he and the U.S. economy desperately need right now, a stimulus for the economy to accelerate growth through 2012. With all the teeth gnashing and table pounding, has anyone come out with a strategy to get such stimulus bill through the Senate where you need 60 votes and at most the Democrats have 53? Right now, all the so called moderate Republicans feel far more fear of being primaried by a Tea Party/Club of Growth coalition.
If there is a strategy to all this, hopefully it is forcing the Administrtion to make a commitment to come up for a full throated defense of Social Security and Medicare and a repudiation of the Catfood Commission in exchange for getting a vote in the House.
For Bob Somerby’s comments, and the incoherence and stupidity of us Liberals, see below:
SEND BACK THE CLOWNS! Rachel and KO and solons oh my! Can someone please send back the clowns: // link // print // previous // next //
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
Coming tomorrow or Monday: Part 4 of our current series, “The fruits of a forty-year script.” We’ve bumped this series back due to the budget proposal.
SEND BACK THE CLOWNS (permalink): The performance by liberal elites has been little short of astounding in the past few days. Consider what happened when Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed Peter Welch.
Welch is Vermont’s sole congressman. After this week’s budget proposal was announced, he organized a letter of opposition within the Democratic House caucus. On Tuesday night, he appeared on Last Word to discuss his opposition. Rather weirdly, this was his first Q-and-A:
O’DONNELL (12/7/10): Joining me now, Congressman Peter Welch. Congressman Welch, thirty signatures on something this urgent is not exactly an overwhelming count. You’re at less than ten percent of the House of Representatives. What do you expect to happen from your effort?
WELCH: Well, the big issue here is the wisdom of this decision that the president’s made. Essentially, he is dealing with a very intractable Senate. There were 53 votes for his position, but you need 60. What he’s done, essentially, is reached an agreement where he’s given the Republicans the tax cuts they want—the estate tax, and then the tax cuts for the very wealthy. And they’ve given him the tax cuts that he wants, that would help some of the folks that the president is fighting for.
But at the end of the day, it’s $900 billion added to the deficit. That’s a real problem. People are not supporting adding onto the deficit.
Really? The “real problem” is the fact that this proposal would add to the deficit? Obama’s original ten-year proposal would also have added to the deficit, big-time. But very few House Democrats opposed it. And sure enough! Moments later, Welch’s position became even less clear:
O’DONNELL: Let me get something straight. This is a question I’ve been asking since this controversy started. Would you allow the Clinton tax rates to take effect on January 1 and have taxes go up for every taxpayer in Vermont in order to continue the jousting with Republicans over this issue? Or do you believe that December 31 really is the drop-dead date? New Year’s Eve, it has to be done by that time?
WELCH: That’s the drop-dead date. I strongly support continuing those lower rates for the middle-class, up to $250,000.
These Republicans are quite happy with crashing through deficit records. The same Republicans who are promoting this will vote against raising the debt ceiling to allow us to pay for this. They’ll oppose any spending programs that the president might have to extend broadband to rural communities, to maintain health care programs, to keep kids going to college. They’ll oppose that saying we can`t afford it.
The second thing is it`s a political trap, in my view. The trap is the same trap the Republicans have been laying so effectively for the past ten years throughout the Bush administration. Two tax cuts under President Bush on the credit card, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War on the credit card, the prescription price program on the credit card.
Now this new stimulus program, $900 billion, on the credit card—the American people are really coming to the conclusion that, at the end of the day, they know the bondholders will win and the middle class and working Americans will lose. This is going to be paid for by our kids and grandkids. And there’s not a new bridge in this program. There’s not a new road. There’s not a new mile of broadband. That’s where the skepticism is.
Tonight, I had a telephone town hall meeting; 11,500 Vermonters called in. And I had folks who were farmers for 35 years, and they have incredibly tough times, a woman on Social Security. They said, “Look, if we can give something up and we know that it is going to help us meet our obligation, shared sacrifice, we’re willing to do it. They do not want to have everything be on the debt, on the credit card.”
Did Welch’s comments make any sense? As everyone knows: Under the original Obama proposal, “continuing those lower rates for the middle-class up to $250,000” would have been “added onto the deficit”—would have been “on the credit card, to be paid for by our kids and grandkids” And the cost of those tax cuts is several times larger than the cost of the cuts for the rich. But Welch didn’t seem to see the apparent contradiction, even as he said that his middle-class constituents want to “give something up…to help meet our obligation.”
Did any of this make a lick of sense? Was Welch proposing that we continue the middle-class tax cuts, but that they should be paid for? The analysts had no idea as they watched this puzzling session unfold. Nor did O’Donnell help us decipher this lofty congressman’s muddled meaning. “Congressman Welch, you bring that clear Vermont common sense to this,” he weirdly said, directly replying to that last quoted statement. “Everything you’ve said is absolutely unimpeachable.”
Moments later, O’Donnell did it again. “Congressman Peter Welch, thank you for your clear-eyed Vermont view of this. Thanks for joining us.”
Good grief! If that represented a “clear-eyed view,” what happens when things get cloudy? To us, the fiery Welch was utterly muddled; his statements seemed to make little sense. Mainly, he said he was upset because $900 billion would be added to the deficit—but he said he supported the middle-class tax cuts, which comprise a large part of that price tag. At the same time, he quoted his struggling, middle-class constituents; they seemed to be saying that they wanted to relinquish their tax cuts! They wanted to pay the price themselves, rather than dump it off on their kids.
The next day, in this interview with Ezra Klein, Welch managed to clarify things a tad—and as it turns out, he does support putting those middle-class tax cuts “on the credit card.” (Never mind what his yeoman constituents said!) By now, though, some of the analysts were in tears; others stared stonily into the distance. By now, the sheer incoherence of liberal conduct had truly been a thing to behold—a marker of the broken morals and intellectual sloth of the modern “progressive” “movement.”
O’Donnell has actually asked good questions this week, when he isn’t dramatically losing his temper about pet aspects of this proposed plan. But how bad did things get in the liberal world as reaction to this plan unfolded? On Tuesday night, no one was more incoherent—and more disingenuous—than Our Own Rhodes Scholar, Rachel Maddow.
But then, what else is new?
Tuesday night, Maddow devoted most of her program to the new proposal. His incoherence and incomprehension were astounding, matched only by her sense of absolute certainty concerning each word which fell from her mouth. She did catch one misstatement from Obama’s press conference—his apparently inaccurate claim that Republicans had been opposing extension of the child tax credit. But elsewhere, her own incomprehension was general. To wit:
Maddow seems to have no idea what the Alternative Minimum Tax is. Repeatedly, she offered variants of this absurd statement: “Republicans also got President Obama to agree to a fix in the alternative minimum tax.” (The AMT is subject to an annual “fix” which is completely non-controversial.)
Maddow seems to think Republicans tricked Obama into extending the Earned Income Tax Credit—a program which benefits low-income earners.
Maddow engaged in one of her classic truncated quotes followed by sarcastic sneering, doctoring Obama’s perfectly intelligible explanation as to why this particular matter was “a unique circumstance.” Having omitted Obama’s explanation, Maddow looked at the camera and snarked and sneered about his lack of same. (This practice is quite common on this miserable program.)
And then, there was Maddow’s weird interview with economist Simon Johnson—an interview which started like this:
MADDOW (12/7/10): Professor Johnson, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
JOHNSON: Nice to be with you.
MADDOW: Am I right that from what we know about this deal that none of it is offset, this is just $900 billion added to the debt?
JOHNSON: Absolutely. As far as we know, it goes straight into the debt. It expands the deficit. It’s completely irresponsible.
MADDOW: Give us a perspective on how big adding $900 billion to the debt is. Nine billion dollar is obviously a big number. All the debt and deficit number seem sort of equally big from a human distance. How big a deal is this in terms of adding to our debt problem?
JOHNSON: It’s a very big deal.
Very, very odd. All of a sudden, Maddow seemed to be upset by the very idea of any deficit spending. Did the lady understand that this new-found concern seems to represent a change in her long-held position? All year long, Maddow has targeted those tax cuts for the rich ($700 billion over ten years!), pleasing tribal libs in the process—without saying a single word about the much larger tax cuts for the middle-class, which would have added $3.2 trillion to those very same deficits. Suddenly, Johnson was saying that all such spending is “completely irresponsible”—and Maddow showed no earthly sign of seeing that this would represent a change in her own position. To all appearances, the lady was shocked, shocked to think that Obama would borrow money like that. In fact, Obama had proposed such borrowing all year long—and Maddow, playing tribal cards, had thoroughly seemed to support it.
Does this biggest of all cable frauds ever know what she’s talking about? Last night, she interviewed Frank Rich about the budget proposal—and Rich was rather plainly suggesting that this week’s loud Democratic solons had been full of old shoes. Maddow had been screeching right along with them, of course—in Tuesday’s interview with Sen. Sherrod Brown, for example. But Maddow did what she always does in these circumstances. Having seemed to agree with Brown on Tuesday, she now played along with Rich:
MADDOW (12/8/10): Joining us now is New York Times columnist Frank Rich.
Mr. Rich, it is nice to see you again. Thanks for coming in.
RICH: Nice to see you.
MADDOW: Do you agree with me that this is, at least, a potential political crisis here, that the president has had a break-up with his own party?
RICH: Yes, potentially. But I think there’s hypocrisy, too, on at least the part of the, some of the congressional Democrats because where were they pushing the White House when something might have really happened? During the campaign for the mid-terms, everyone was sort of—very wanted to see the tax cuts for the richest Americans and the super-rich expire, but it was really played down by many Democrats as well as the president during the campaign. Now, we`re in a lame-duck session with sort of the gun to everyone`s head, and so, the sort of rebellion of the congressional base seems to me a little—a little tardy and a little bit theatrical.
The Democratic rebellion was hypocritical, Rich said—a little tardy, a little theatrical. One night before, Maddow herself had promoted that same rebellion. But now, she pulled in her head and offered inane remarks about how Nancy Pelosi has gotten things done—inane because, as everyone knows, the problem for Obama’s original plan has always been found in the Senate.
Maddow is one of the biggest frauds ever dumped on the public. In this case, she has been dumped on us—the suffering souls of the liberal world. That said, Keith Olbermann has been equally clownish and clueless in his own screeching and yelling this week—and in his own interviews, where he too seemed to pretend that he didn’t hear when guests seemed to disagree with him. (We think of his Tuesday night interviews with both Ezra Klein and Rep. Bobby Scott.) But what do you expect when big corporations select our “progressives” for us?
How upside-down have things gotten this week? Last night, Chris Matthews batted Sherrod Brown all over the lot, calling out the sheer absurdity of his Tuesday performance with Maddow. Double absurdly, Brown is saying that Obama should give a few speeches in Maine, forcing that state’s Republican senator to flip on tax cuts for the rich. This is one of the most ridiculous presentations we’ve ever seen from a major pol. That much said, in a dozen years of watching Hardball, we don’t think we’ve ever seen Matthews clarify an actual issue. Last night, incredibly, he did.
Matthews actually clarified something! But then, things have been so absurd this week, even Gail Collins was spotted making sense in today’s New York Times:
COLLINS (12/9/10): “The American people are outraged!” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He wanted the president to draw that line in the sand, let the unemployment benefits lapse, the tax code fall into limbo, and hold out until public opinion forced 60 votes to come around.
If you really wanted the American people to rally around no-tax-cuts-for-richies, shouldn’t we have had this conversation before the election? It’s a lot easier to send Washington a message at the polls than on a protest march in a sub-zero wind-chill factor.
No, we waited until now because the Senate leaders left the timing up to their members who were running for re-election, and the Democrats in question said they’d rather not have to go on the record.
Duh. Major Dem solons ducked a vote. Now, they’re pretending that things can somehow be salvaged if Obama would make a few speeches in Maine! How vast has the absurdity gotten? Even Collins and Matthews are suddenly getting things right!
Maddow’s a consummate cable fraud; Olbermann is no better. The corporate boys purchased these presents for us. After Christmas, can we possibly send these clowns back?
More on our side’s intellectual breakdown tomorrow. Truly, the liberal world has been behaving like children in this pre-Christmas week.
Alex S.
Krauthammer is convinced that Obama is an intellectual force out to destroy him – personally. He also wrote this one column that compared Obama to Reagan and concluded that he is just as transformative. Krauthammer probably secretly admires Obama even though he should hate him for ideological reasons.
And well, Krauthammer believes in the tax-cut mantra. So of course, he believes that these cuts are the new death star.
And Krauthammer is not a hack. He always believes what he writes. Krauthammer is always serious.
Pococurante
Except of course the Republicans will successfully hang the deficit busting part of this on the Democrats.
jon
@cleek: It’s now a fact that neither party can claim any “fiscally conservative” grounds. I honestly think all the tax cuts should expire, recession or no, and we should just suck it up. But apparently that’s a minority position and I’m some sort of Grinch who hates The Capitalism and The Communism Spelled with an S in equal measure.
ChrisS
Would this deal actually act as a stimulus? In a major way?
No. I’m not quite sure that cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans ever acts as a stimulus. Extending unemployment is, at best, a band-aid at the expense of a massive tax cut for the wealthy and a time bomb for social security.
Extending the tax cuts for those making less than $250k would. These people, for the most part, spend what they get. Their investments are limited to a 401k, some stocks/bonds, and their homes. They don’t pool their money into a hedge fund that buys up struggling companies, cashes them out, fires the workforce and then sells it off in pieces for an 8% profit.
None of Obama’s chicago school remedies even remotely address the core of the problem: thanks to globalization and, essentially, a flat tax, 90% of Americans are seeing a stagnation of wages as the price of their labor equalizes with that of developing countries and wealth concentrates in the hands of the elite.
Extending unemploument benefits just makes people more dependent on government handouts. The jobs ain’t coming back.
Alwhite
so here are my choices:
Kraphammer is correct about something
OR
The tax deal sucks
given the first option I don’t even need to know what the second one is to know it is more likely.
I was thinking it might actually be the best we could have hoped for but if the giant kraphammer thinks its a good thing I must be wrong.
kay
@rickstersherpa:
I actually think it’s okay and expected and their duty for House Dems to battle now, although I agree with you substantively on timing. I think screaming a lot now can move the ball forward on explaining who pays what in this country, and clarifying how full of shit conservatives are on deficits. I think that’s the right and the duty of the liberals in the House. I don’t begrudge them this chance at all. I think they should make a lot of noise, and if they get substantive gains, good for them.
I would like to point out an obvious truth that gets lost, though. There are plenty of Democratic voters and donors who make more than 250k a year, particularly on both coasts. That’s why you saw Boxer chicken out and Schumer try to raise the cut-off to a million. This myth we’re promoting that only Republican voters and donors make more than 250k a year is nonsense. There are plenty of loyal Democrats who make more than that.
Annelid Gustator
@Alex S.: Really? He means that stuff? Then he is incompetent and and wicked.
Bill E Pilgrim
Don’t worry, David Broder and David Brooks both think the deal is great and love the bipartisany way that Obama did it. Brooks goes on an anti-liberal Democratic wing screed in the second half of his column that’s basically the rant in Obama’s press conference expanded into column form.
SP
Oh no Brer Fox, pleeeeaaase don’t throw me in that briar patch!
mr. whipple
I will say this aspect of the debate has been really amusing.
sixers
Its all about 2012 for Obama. Anything to gain an edge there he will do. Anyone who thought this term was going to be soley about putting republicans in their place was naive. I have no problem with the deal because it helps out those hurting most and puts the GOP further into looking like they care only about the rich. Save the real crying and claims of betrayal until after 2012 when he doesn’t have to worry about getting reelected.
Alex S.
@Annelid Gustator:
Well, I guess so. Just look at the correction in the final lines of his column. The style tells you all you need to know.
mclaren
@ChrisS:
You make an excellent point. Extending unemployment insurance may help for the next year or two, but what then?
The fundamental issues destroying the American economy are not being addressed by the Democrats. Automation, robotics, offshoring and the disconnection of American corporations from the U.S. labor force are the real reasons why the American economy is circling the toilet bowl.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans have done or plan to do anything about those issues. So the screams about unemployment insurance seem misplaced. Millions upon millions of Americans are never going to have jobs again and extending UI for a few months won’t fix that.
burnspbesq
One of the problems (far from the only problem, but I have a plane to catch) in Krauthammer’s “gee whiz, the Magic Negro conned the Republicans into abandoning their principles” meme is that it assumes that Republicans have principles. That’s an assumption that may not withstand sustained scrutiny.
Mike from Philly
All of this bemused snickering about progressives worrying about the deficit has me…well, bemused.
We were screaming bloody murder about slashing taxes for our elites and driving up the deficit when Bush enacted this travesty 10 years ago. We worked hard in those ten years to elect a Democratic Congress and Senate and then a Democratic president with supermajorities to try and CORRECT errors like
Runaway deficits due to tax breaks for the ultra rich
Two neverending senseless wars
Lawless executive decrees
Obama has continued and expanded all of this. And somehow he’s managed to do it while telling the people who busted their ass getting him in there what complete douchebags they are for actually believing that any real change was going to occur. And suddenly we don’t have a right to complain? Why, because we supported the initial economic stimulus package? Because Republicans somehow “own” the deficit issue despite continually exploding it?
And what were you guys doing during the same time frame? Oh yeah, cheering it all on like the mindless authoritarians you are. You were wrong when you broke out the pom poms for Bush’s idiocy and you’re wrong now.
PS – Krauthammer? Seriously?
jwb
@Alex S.: “Krauthammer is always serious.” Deadly serious. But he’s still almost as reliably wrong as Kristol.
Bill E Pilgrim
@burnspbesq: It’s also not surprising in the least, Kruathammer and the others in the most extreme fringes of the GOP will find anything that didn’t hand the country entirely over to business interests a massive failure and a win for the Democrats. Michelle Bachmann thinks it’s a bad deal for Republicans also, people may have noticed by now. No surprise here.
jwb
@Bill E Pilgrim: Bachmann and the teabaggers dislike it for reasons completely contrary to the reasons the left dislikes it. It may be enough to keep it from passing, but there is nothing there to build on.
ChrisS
I have no problem with using deficit spending to inject money into the bottom of the economy through infrastructure projects designed to strengthen America, including education. That’s the kind of spending that pays off years down the road in addition to the stimulus it provides in the short term.
Tax cuts just put more money into the investment portfolios of the super wealthy, allowing them to accumulate more wealth and distance themselves from the common ones. That deficit does little to nothing for the economy and actually weakens the infrastructure and education system.
azlib
Krauthammer is clearly no economist. As Krugman has pointed out in his blog this week, the “good parts” of this deal run out at the end of next year, while the “bad parts” will likely be extended in 2012 which is not good for Obama’s reelection hopes.
Again the Republicans have managed to insert some ticking time bombs in this deal as well. The reduction in payroll taxes will likely get extended. Since it benefit lower income folks the most, this will likely help the economy in 2012 which is maybe why Obama agreed to it. The downside is it make it easier to start dismantling Social Security.
Krauthammer is right, this is a big piece of stimulus, but I do not think it will be all that effective. The spending multipliers on tax cuts is just not that high. The wealthy will continue to tuck away their windfall and the rest of us who are leveraged will buy down debt for the most part.
The Republican’s will as usual pivot 180 degrees and play the deficit card again starting with the new Congress and may manage to pass some stuff which will negate the effects of this somewhat costly stimulus measure.
Bill E Pilgrim
@jwb: Huh?
I’m not saying that Bachmann dislikes it for reasons similar to the left. I’m saying that Bachman dislikes it for reasons similar to Krauthammer’s.
J.W. Hamner
@azlib:
Oh come on… the benefits for rich people aren’t very stimulative, but that doesn’t make them bad for the economy. If Krugman claims they are then I’d like to see a link.
amk
This is kraut’s secret plan for kos & his gang to hate him more. Bet they are having wet dream ‘diaries’ right now there.
amk
Obama’s fired up ‘base’ now.
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Political-Cartoons/Firing-Up-The-Base.htm
mr. whipple
I agree with ya. They could have used this to their benefit. Well, maybe not, as the public seemed blissfully unaware they got their first tax cut.
That said, I’d love to sit in on the meetings to hear what they were fighting about. I’d imagine it sounds a lot like here.
jwb
@Bill E Pilgrim: brain fart. Sorry about that.
Cacti
Whatever happens, at the end of the day, I blame the black guy.
jeff
I don’t like Kos that much, but he’s not evil. As for the other guy….
Bill E Pilgrim
@jwb: You’re entirely excused.
Might want to check the next thread for a somewhat applicable discussion ;)
Christin
If I cared what “Kos” thought.
I would be slightly annoyed. Maybe.
As it stands now, some whiner desperately trying to make his web site relevant again by screeching the latest FDL talking points, who can’t sell more than 200 books, who gets banned from network TV due to his idiocy, who sounds more like a teabagger than a teabagger?
Shrug.
I do like seeing Kraut and Kos in the same paragraph though. Those two morans deserve each other’s irrelevancy.
Kryptik
@J.W. Hamner:
They’re not good for the economy precisely because they aren’t stimulative, at a time when the economy needs to be jumpstarted the most. The giveaways to the rich are not stimulative because the benefits almost never end up ‘trickling-down’ like most GOPers (who take trickle-down as an article of faith and a given) believe. And yet those benefits last twice as long as the real stimulative stuff that actually gets the bottom (which is always monetarily in flux, especially compared to the top brackets).
The stuff given to the top brackets is bad, precisely because it will result in further entrenchment, at a time when making the rich richer should be our last priority.
burnspbesq
@Mike from Philly:
“You were wrong when you broke out the pom poms for Bush’s idiocy and you’re wrong now.”
Who is this “you” you’re describing? That’s not the vast majority of people around here.
Are you an ass all day, or do you become rational after breakfast?
mr. whipple
@Christin:
Keep that up and you’ll be troll rated into obscurity.
burnspbesq
@Bill E Pilgrim:
If you still view Krauthammer as the “most extreme fringe of the GOP, you may need to refresh your data.
DBrown
Obama did win this round for those reasons – don’t get the issue of the posion pill – the price you pay for blue dogs and a CSA rule (a sixty vote requirement to protect slavery) in the senate … . To see who won, look how much of the money goes to those who really need it and who will spend it asap and how little to the elite … Obama won big time.
Christin
@rickstersherpa:
thanks for posting that…..I used to read TDH religiously when I had more time. He cut through all the b.s. with such amazing simple clarity. ANd it’s not like he did not do it to ALL sides with fairness.
Which is why I loved reading him. I’v had it with one side crazy ass screaming and bullshit not giving me the whole story and slanting the truth (i.e. Faux which has bled into Olberman and Maddow). Because then I walk around and spout of shit as stupid as the right wing. As The Daily Howler proves.
It’s also why I removed Maddow and Olbermann from our DVR, and added Lawrence O’Donnell. And why I no longer read DK but do read Andrew Sullivan. Screeching Ignorant Screamers full of crap are so 2009. Period. (cept for me. )
eemom
1. As I have explained before, Krauthammer just doesn’t belong in the same “hack” category as mindless simpering fucktwits like Kristol.
He’s the press secretary for The Devil Himself.
2. rickstersherpa dude, good man, appreciate the thought but…….well, if we start injecting massive doses of 100-proof Somerby rants into the comments threads here, it could blow up the blog — possibly the whole internet.
Paul in KY
If Krauthammer said the sun rises in the East, I’d be out there to make sure he wasn’t lying.
Paul in KY
@rickstersherpa: Maybe you need to be able to post as a contributor or get your own blog.
eemom
I forgot
3. WHY does everybody keep talking about what the Democrats woulda coulda shoulda done before the election — as though that makes this deal any less odious? WTF?? We are where we are.
New Yorker
Congrats, Charles. You win the broken clock award for the day. I’m still waiting for the day your buddy Billy Kristol gets something right and the universe implodes.
But I do love that now he’s worried about “borrowed Chinese dollars”. Hey Chuck, how did we pay for that insane imperial adventure in Iraq? How would we pay for invading Iran like you’re itching to do?
Blue Neponset
Add Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) to the “professional left” list. He had this to say about the McConnel/Obama tax cuts for the rich: link
What say you, Obama defenders? Is Rep. Moran asking too much of the President?
WyldPirate
@agrippa:
And this is part of why the Dems, from Obama on down, aren’t worth a flying fuck at leading ANYTHING.
The best of the three is Pelosi.
The dithering incompetent deal making is Obama’s modus operandi. That is how he has done everything. He takes things off the table before he even gets to the fucking table. That is just fucking stupid and weak.
eemom
@Christin:
With all due respect, I don’t see how that leaves you with Somerby and Sullivan.
Somerby isn’t ignorant or full of crap but boy is he a Screeching Screamer.
Sullivan isn’t a screeching screamer but boy is he Full of Crap.
J.W. Hamner
@Kryptik:
Because it doesn’t help doesn’t mean it hurts… and it’s certainly conceivable to me that letting the top end cuts expire might have a minor drag on the economy. I don’t see how letting them expire helps the economy in 2012. While I think we should let them expire on policy grounds, I don’t see a short term economic case for doing so.
Suck It Up!
@eemom:
easy to talk about what’s been done if you have no clue as to what to do next.
amk
@Blue Neponset: Yes, these dems suddenly developing balls, after cowering in their corners and sitting on their collective asses since 2008, is a wonderful sight.
Dave
@Blue Neponset: Ask Moran why they didn’t have the fucking tax vote in the House before the election.
Karmakin
There’s very little “stimulus” in this. It’s mostly a continuation of current policy. Now, it might not be the worst thing because continuing some of these things at least means that it won’t result in “anti-stimulus” type stuff.
Until governments deal with the real changes in the labor structure (that don’t involve people thinking that gosh darnit, if only those unemployed people were a little more educated they’d be able to find work) that have happened over the last 30 years or so, it’s basically shifting deck chairs on the Titanic.
martha
I just go back to the simple question that many of the Kos/FDL screamers avoid answering over and over again: why didn’t the House/Senate vote to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for those over $250K in the spring, summer, or early fall of 2010? They had ample opportunities to bring this to a vote and, wow, it never happened. I wonder why? And that wimpy president of ours gave them “guidance” and told them his preference multiple times.
Alex, I’ll take “What are chickens#$%s”?” for $1000. They were worried about pissing off Blue Dogs, lobbyists, teahadists, Palinbots, their own shadows, etc.
As much as I hated (despised, loathed, insert your preferred active verb here) Rummy, I keep quoting him in multiple situations these days. You go with the [insert item] you’ve got, not the [insert item] you’d like to have.
cat48
@eemom:
Yes, we are where we are, with guns to our heads. That’s why I don’t get how everyone’s reacting, except blaming Obama which is normal for anything that might happen.
I was looking back on some blogs where everyone was begging the congress to vote before the election on blogs and they refused to do it because they were afraid of RepublicanAds about taxes. That’s why this entire circus seems illogical to me.
Also, on Hardball last night, Ezra said that Pelosi refused to go to that meeting they’re screaming about not being included in because she didn’t want to negotiate w/ rethugs.
Suck It Up!
@Blue Neponset:
What? Is Moran’s complaint extra special or something?
Alex S.
@eemom:
Walter Mondale is the devil???
Just joking, I agree with your characterization. And yes, Krauthammer is Cheney’s press secretary.
eemom
@Dave:
Moran also needs to be asked why he voted AGAINST last week’s House bill extending ONLY the middle class tax cuts.
Bill E Pilgrim
@burnspbesq:
Is what I wrote. Purposely plural, thinking someone might make exactly that remark.
Do I know this place or what?
Well, not, apparently since you made the remark anyway.
My point, in case it’s not clear to anyone, is that despite most of the GOP chortling and rather pleased with themselves at the deal, there are some on the edges who already came out against it, and Krauthammer doing so really shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Krauthammy is an extremist, yeah. Not the same one in kind or degree as Bachmann, no.
azlib
@J.W. Hamner:
See this link: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/december-2011/
He is not saying it is bad economically in the short term. It is bad in the longer term if the high end cuts get extended and are not offset by spending cuts or higher taxes elsewhere. We are making a future fiscal crisis more likely.
Suck It Up!
@eemom:
MOTHERFUKCER!!! for real?
Blue Neponset
@Dave: They should have had the vote before the election.
What does that have to do with Rep. Moran lamenting the fact that Obama doesn’t have his back? It’s seems clear to me that Moran is expecting more leadership from Obama.
Blue Neponset
@Suck It Up!: It is super special because he is a member of the House of Representatives, and not some “idiot blogger” who doesn’t get it.
Blue Neponset
@eemom: According to his website Rep. Moran voted against it for the same reason he voted against the original 2001 tax cuts. link
Dave
@Blue Neponset: It has everything to do with it! The White House was begging the Congressional Democratic leadership to hold that vote before the election, when they had maximum leverage over the GOP. And they pissed it away. Now that Obama has limited leverage and a clock ticking down until the GOP takes the House, Moran has the brass balls to start bitching about who has who’s back? Where the fuck was he the past year??
JohnR
Unfortunately, Krauthammer is a pathological lunatic. That raises some worrisome questions about Obama, unless you assume that Krauthammer is at least theoretically capable of being correct from time to time.
Omnes Omnibus
@JohnR: Blind squirrel: nut. It is possible, unlikely, but possible.
Blue Neponset
@Dave: The House and Senate didn’t drop the ball on this vote for no reason at all. They had valid reasons to drop it. (I don’t personally agree with those reasons but they are valid none the less) As Rep. Moran’s comment shows, some in Congress haven’t been confident in Obama’s ability to lead. If there are Democratic Representatives in Congress who claim not to know where Obama is on anything then that is a problem with Obama’s leadership. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could disagree with that. Do you think Moran is a moran? Is he lying?
Also, there is plenty of blame to go around on this. Senate Dems especially deserve a lot of it. So does Obama. What bothers me about the Obama defenders is they don’t seem willing to admit Obama screwed this up good.
Suck It Up!
@Blue Neponset:
These complaints have come from the senate before and my thoughts are the same – they are all looking for cover, they are all looking for excuses to sit and do nothing ’cause Obama didn’t tell them what to do. Is Moran new? After all those years under bush waiting and waiting for a Dem president, these guys don’t know what they want? they don’t have a wish list somewhere? they don’t have ideas about what needs to be addressed? The HOUSE and the SENATE both had an opportunity to do something about the tax cut issue. You know, all those times Obama was going state to state saying over and over that he wants to raise taxes on the rich? The Dems for whatever reason chose to sit and do nothing so Obama took control and got the ball rolling. Now they want to get mad? Tough! Next time they’ll learn to be proactive.
eemom
@Suck It Up!:
ayup
Blue Neponset
@Suck It Up!: As someone mentioned above, if Obama and the Dems didn’t talk all this out long before Obama even became President then they should all be fired. The way you are describing it one would think Obama doesn’t have Nancy Pelosi’s phone number.
We all watched the Republicans march in lockstep for eight years. It is certainly possible for the Democrats to do something similar.
Suck It Up!
@Blue Neponset:
Another reason why I think Moran’s complaint is just cover and utter bullshit? the House has passed hundreds of bills that are just sitting in the Senate. So either Obama was leading there or the House got proactive and got shit done without Obama holding their hand. Moran is full of it, they knew what to do and didn’t do it or didn’t want to do it. Obama is the scapegoat.
Shade Tail
@Blue Neponset:
Moran is asking Obama to do *what he had actually done*. Anyone paying attention in the few months prior to the November election saw Obama pushing a vote on tax policy very aggressively. Every single campaign speech to the public, every single caucus speech where he lobbied Congress, he pushed his tax policy every time. Pelosi and, to a slightly lesser extent, Reid both got into the act and pushed for this also.
And the Democratic Caucus, because they were cowardly and/or stupid, refused to do it. Never mind that voting on Obama’s tax agenda would have given them a very effective cudgel over their GOP opponents *even if it hadn’t passed*.
Moran is full of shit and making excuses for his caucus’ weakness. It was Congress who dropped the ball on this, not Obama.
ChrisNBama
This is the point I keep making on liberal blogs. Christ, even Krauthammer sees it (and no, I don’t think he’s being coy. He sees what other people who have looked at the plan see: a VERY progressive stimulus plan that is, of course, imperfect).
I simply do not understand the absolute apoplexy and hand wringing on the left. Does anyone in their right minds think that Obama would be able to negotiate a “compromise” that includes an extension of unemployment benefits, a payroll tax cut, and extension of many of the more attractive tax incentives from the Stimulus in the next congress?
I think the House democrats have got to do their little kabuki dance to appease the very liberal elements of the democratic party who view this as a complete capitulation, then get on board and put a plan forward that can be voted on next week. The Tea Party hordes are being activated and they want to strip out the provisions that benefit the poor, or at least offset them by robbing Peter to pay Paul. The window is closing and the democrats have got to get their shit together now!
Martin
Not to get in the way too much here, but a factual note: China holds about 20% of the 25% of debt held by foreigners. Those anti-capitalists in Japan hold another 20%. That is to say, of all of our national debt, a total of about 5% is held by China. 50% of our debt is held by the Federal Reserve, etc. 25% is held by US banks, state and local govt., pensions, mutual funds, etc.
Just your daily refutation of another zombie GOP lie.
tworivers
@JohnR:
Agreed. Given Krauthammer’s track record of lunacy and incomprehension, I take what he says with a grain of salt
Of course, the whole piece may be concern trolling on CK’s part (trying to convince Dems that they got the better of the deal). I wouldn’t put that past Krauthammer – he may be an idiot, but he’s smart enough to engage in that sort of skullduggery
ChrisNBama
I don’t believe there was ever a good time to discuss raising taxes when unemployment has been hovering near ten percent for over a year. I’ve thought about this and thought about it, and I think there was an expectation (hope) that the economy would be substantially improved by now. That seems like the most logical reason why the can was kicked down the road.
Of course, the unemployment rate is still unacceptably high, and democrats in the Senate and House decided it best not to engage in the tax debate before the midterms, thus ensuring Obama would be in a position of great weakness in negotiating an extension. The fact is that he was able to wrangle some stunning concessions from the GOP in return for a TEMPORARY extension of the more onerous provisions. I can’t see how Obama could possibly have hoped for a better outcome considering the circumstances. That hasn’t stopped the liberal left, who really don’t care that much about governance, from wanting to see Obama make a big public hissy fit so they can feel good about themselves as the tax cuts expire or Obama ultimately surrenders and extends the cuts anyway with less favorable terms.
Elie
@ChrisNBama:
Preach, brother, preach!
Not that the fact you point out will penetrate the strata for those who just want to think the worst…
sigh
News Reference
Krauthammer is delusional, 13-dementia’l delusional.
First: Obama handed Republican billions and billions in gifts that serve the top 1% to the tune of 25% of the tax gifts.
Second: Only a small fraction of the total package will be stimulative.
Third: Krauthammer’s 13-dementia’l extremism serves the interests of pushing the right-wing Overton window even farther to the right.
Fourth: Obama has helped Republicans further defund government (part of the right-wing’s Master plan).
Fifth: Obama has helped Republicans further defund Social-Security (part of the right-wing’s Master plan).
Sixth: Obama has helped Republicans further several false right-wing ideological beliefs: Billionaire tax-gifts create jobs (if that were true those jobs would exist now), aristocratic children of wealth need to be coddled, and that Obama is weak.
That last point is important, rational Republicans recognize this makes Obama weak but then he can’t be the scary-fill-in-the-scary-blank-scary-menace that is a core narrative of the right-wing’s attack on Obama.
Krauthammer is just returning to the ridiculously false 13-dementia’l narrative on how scary Obama is.
DaBomb
@News Reference: You must be off your meds again.
Shade Tail
From an interview on NPR earlier today:
AxelFoley
@dr. bloor:
Nowadays? I wouldn’t put one over the other.
AxelFoley
@Dave:
Exactly.
AAA Bonds
This isn’t 11th dimensional anything on Krauthammer’s part. Krauthammer’s columns follow whatever line is fed to AM radio show hosts now – and I do believe it is a single line, from a single unknown source, probably some group of folks we’d all recognize if we knew the names.
This isn’t genius-level calculation, nor is it an unlikely conspiracy. It’s simply the Frank Luntz strategy come to fruition. The Republicans stated they would do this with their media messaging back in the 1990s, and now they’ve done it.
The current line is this: the deal is good, because the tax cuts are what matter, and it’s a “victory for Obama” over his own party, proving their inability to act in concert. (Don’t get whiplash, now.)
This worked exactly the same way as the TSA problems: Krauthammer suddenly became intimately concerned with absolute civil liberties of white people (in complete contradiction to his previously stated “situational libertarianism”), grafting the AM radio line of the week onto his standard strong endorsement of racial profiling.
AAA Bonds
@ChrisNBama:
This is silly, if you’re actually being honest. Krauthammer hasn’t written a column that deviates from the Republican party line since before 9/11. Whatever you actually think of the deal, rest assured that Krauthammer’s ideas come from somewhere other than his own observations.
AAA Bonds
@eemom:
Couldn’t have put it better.
Mike Kay (Team America)
if this deal is such a defeat for liberal philosophy then why are Jim Demint and Halfgovernor Palin ALSO opposing the deal?
if this was really a defeat for liberals, they would be dancing a jig.
PanurgeATL
@ChrisS:
But if the jobs ain’t coming back, how will the unemployed get new jobs? Answers:
1. Create new jobs (maybe in The New Green/Biotech Economy).
2. Reduce the work week and distribute the now-free hours to the unemployed. I mean, I remember when I was a kid, everybody was figuring we’d be working less by now anyway.
3. Some combination of #1 and #2.
As for the debt, I’m happy to offer the standard liberal answer: Single-payer health care, soak the rich in the purported new tax structure (because them what’s on top can’t complain), and GET RID OF THE EMPIRE–WE DON’T NEED IT.