Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Great Cave

To nobody's surprise, it happened:
President Obama and congressional Republicans have reached a tentative accord on a far-reaching economic package that would preserve George W. Bush administration tax breaks for families at all income levels for two years, extend emergency jobless benefits through 2011 and cut payroll taxes by 2 percent for every American worker through the end of next year.

The scope of the agreement, announced by the White House late Monday, was far broader than lawmakers in either party had been expecting. The deal would extend a college tuition tax credit and other breaks for middle-class families that were due to expire New Year's Eve. And it would revive the inheritance tax after a year-long lapse, imposing a 35 percent rate on estates worth more than $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples.
Obama embraces conservative position X, berates liberals for not also embracing conservative policiy X. This happens all the time, but the reaction this time feels pretty different:
WASHINGTON -- Despite his protestations at Tuesday's press conference that he had no choice, President Obama's concession to Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy appears to have sent many of his historically most fervent supporters to new levels of despair.

The president's refusal to fight harder against the massive giveaway to people who need it the least has disheartened not only activists, former Obama advisers and members of Congress, but his grassroots.
I was in the car a lot today and was listening to a lot of news coverage, and the liberal backlash was a lead story on most of the main outlets. I gotta say I think it's the first time I can ever remember hearing mainstream media outlets discussing progressives in a positive frame.

It's amazing what standing up for your beliefs will do.

Strange fucking times.

2 comments:

  1. the unemployment thing does go a good way towards quelling my rage about this. Dad is what you might call "under" employed. He currently has a temp job. But since it's a temp job, he WILL be unemployed in the none-too-distant future.
    Still, it's not ENTIRELY quelled. This still means millionaires are more important to the administration than federal employees (read "mom"). Basically it amounts to a statement of, "Deficit? What deficit? Oh I was just pulling your leg about that. We can totally afford to do this. You're still not getting cost-of-living increases for the next two years, though. You know, because we're so poor."

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  2. Chris Hayes tweeted something the other day related to this:

    Lesson 1 about DC: No one cares about the deficit.

    Lesson 2 about DC: Those who talk the most about the deficit care about it the least.

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