Obama was given a mandate in 2008. He was given the House and the Senate.

He squandered this mandate by trying to play nice with the other side...which pissed off a lot of folks who saw "new boss same as the old boss" and chose not to participate because of that fact in 2010. By putting down the guard, losing this midterm hurt us because then the repukes got to do the redistricting and they completely gerrymandered the districts. I live in one of the poorest counties in Texas. In our gerrymander, we lost our district and were put with one of the richest counties in Texas--guess who will get their needs met first? Anyway, I digress.

I think the voters were so repulsed by the repuke message that they again gave Obama a mandate for 2012. If he doesn't do the job that he was sent to do in 2008...then I think we will lose everything for a very long time. We won't need them to disenfranchise our voters, we will have done it to ourselves.

The county that we are in line with has more private schools than any other in Texas.

Our county has failing schools.

Our old Congressman would fight for public schools...no doubt what this one will do.

I say put 2 choices on the table:


A) Let the *ush tax cuts expire and we'll blame the rethugs for raising taxes on EVERYONE

B) Compromise by raising taxes on those that can afford it to fair levels $250,000+ and get SOME credit for keeping taxes low for SOME of the people (between 80% to 98% of US)

only so much he can engineer out of that crowd.

Maybe he can outflank them like Dems did on the health care bill and the payroll tax cut, but no matter who blinks first, it will be a big challenge to get them to just enact his entire mandate without altering it. That's the ONLY 'bipartisanship' the president is referring to when he mentions this. The political reality of a divided Congress with the republicans in control in the body where money matters are supposed to originate. To initiate a money bill in the Dem Senate takes a 60 vote waiver. I really don't expect republicans to roll all the way over. Like I said, it's likely we'll see action resembling the payroll tax cut showdown where republicans blinked as the WH stood firm. Not sure if that will be an effective or productive tactic beyond the debate on taxes. We'd certainly like to see that backbone from the WH promised by the president. We'll just have to see how far it goes.

Oh, bigtree. Here we go again, huh?

Here we are, with our hand stronger than at any time in recent history, so of course the bids for passivity and low expectations must begin. Here come the inevitable exhortations that compromise is inevitable, even when compromise would be malignant to millions, and even though Democrats just won massive electoral victories campaigning on the promise to stand up for the 99 percent.

Spare us the propagandizing about our weak hand. Obama just carried every single swing state, with polls showing decisively that Americans, even across party lines, utterly reject Simpson Bowles and cutting Medicare and Social Security. Austerity is wildly unpopular among the electorate, and for solid economic reasons as well as self-preserving ones. Europe is collapsing under austerity, and reasoned and educated voices are multiplying to proclaim that multi-trillion dollar budget slashing and austerity are a scam and an assault on a nation - not only NOT healthy like eating your peas, but economically DESTRUCTIVE.

Democrats who *truly* oppose austerity and Republican policies don't start out by preaching about bipartisanship and weakness, especially when we have unprecedented public support and momentum building behind our party to do the right thing for the nation. Every bit of evidence...from economic data, to polls, to results of this decisive election.... is coalescing around the consensus that telling the one percent and the Republicans exactly what they can do with their austerity is not only the popular thing to do, but the economically responsible thing to do.

We hold the cards now, by every measure. The President has it within his power to seize this popular mandate, seize control of the narrative in Washington, and lead a wave of real change by standing firm, speaking passionately to the nation, and saying NO, once and for all, to the Republican bullshit and blackmail.

Voters Didn't Ask for Bi-Partisanship, They Demanded Good Policies...Obama holds the cards this time
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021789621

Budget cutting in a depression just deepens the depression
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021789566

It is well past time for the deliberate looting of the poor and middle classes to stop, and for the looters to be hobbled once and for all. How revealing of certain forces operative in our party that, even now, even when we are backed by solid electoral victories and a turning tide of economic awareness, we are treated to the old, familiar, defeatist Third Way song...

. . . remember, 'math?'

I see you're back to pretending that it's the President passing these budget bills. Back to pretending that just saying someone wants 'bipartisanship,' or, for that matter, wants to 'seize the mandate,' actually does anything to move the NUMBERS in the national legislature needed to actually advance bills into action or law. It's always convenient to stand on the outside of the political process and scold and posture about what the President should do, but, ultimately, it's CONGRESS who is initially charged with making these initiatives a reality. With a republican House still in place, NOTHING will advance without their input. It's just false to say the President 'holds all the cards.' Just patently FALSE, on its face.

and I still say, once again, that ending the Bush tax cuts for incomes $250,000 and over is a lousy compromise. A disgusting compromise.

At this point, I would rather see them all ended. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1777348

Ending them all is better than continuing to pass huge tax cuts for the rich.

Keeping them for incomes below $60,000 would be nice, would be better, but that option is not even being discussed as the argument is between only two shitty options - keep 73% of them, or keep 100% of them.