I Support Huffington Post’s Reporting of Obama Plans for Bush Tax Cuts

I Support Huffington Post’s Reporting of Obama Plans for Bush Tax Cuts

Notwithstanding the recent denials and repudiation by the White House of the Huffington Post’s reporting of their interview with Obama advisor David Axelrod on the administration’s plans to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, I believe that their reporting was right on target and a service to our country.

Despite their repudiation of the Huffington Post article, the White House disputed only the interpretation, not the facts reported in the article. Therefore, one must assume the facts as reported to be accurate. Furthermore, I find the White House repudiation of the article’s interpretation to be highly disingenuous. Let’s consider the details:


The facts as reported by the Huffington Post

With regard to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the HuffPo article says:


And later, in response to the need to maintain middle class tax cuts, Axelrod is quoted as saying:


Those are pretty simple facts.


The White House “denial”

The crux of the White House denial is simply this:


That’s the extent of the denial. No denial of the facts, just the interpretation. Then Pleiffer adds, after disavowing that the White House has any intent of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy:



Trying to make sense out of this exchange

So Axelrod says that it appears that the only way for the middle class to retain their tax cuts is to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. And he says that he doesn’t want to trade away tax cuts for the middle class “in order to make that point”. If those statements don’t suggest that the administration intends to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, I don’t know what other interpretation could possibly be put on them.

Furthermore, the statement that the only way to maintain tax cuts for the middle class is to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is highly disingenuous. The Republican Party is supposedly the anti-tax party. Why on earth would they oppose extension of tax cuts for the middle class? There is one reason and one reason only: to hold middle class tax cuts hostage to their effort to extend much larger tax cuts for the wealthy. If they can hold middle class tax cuts hostage by saying that they won’t support them unless they get tax cuts for the wealthy, I guess they can hold any legislation hostage to anything else that they want.

The situation is this. The Republicans can’t get any legislation passed without support from the Democratic Party. They don’t have a majority in the Senate (let alone a filibuster-proof majority), they don’t have the presidency, and they don’t have a veto-proof majority in the House. So the only way they can get legislation passed that is opposed by the Democratic Party is to blackmail the Democratic Party by threatening to oppose other legislation – legislation of value to the American people.

But the extension of middle class tax cuts is very popular with most US voters. So how can the Republican Party oppose them without incurring the wrath of the voters? By trying to explain to them that – notwithstanding the huge budget deficits that will be incurred by extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy – tax cuts for the wealthy are necessary? Shouldn’t President Obama and the Democratic Party be able to explain this to US voters without caving in to a Republican plan that is helping to bankrupt our country?


Why the HuffPo article was necessary

The Obama administration, despite large majorities in both Houses of Congress, has caved in to Republican Party and corporate interests time after time, despite promises during the 2008 presidential campaign to do otherwise. It settled for a health care “reform” bill that left control of health care with the rapacious health insurance industry. It oversaw a multi-trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street while demanding nothing in return. It allowed the oil giant BP to handle its massive oil spill in its own bumbling way rather than stepping in to make sure that it was handled properly. It failed to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison, as promised. It refused to fight for meaningful efforts to combat global warming. It refused to fight for the right to form labor unions. And it has refused to prosecute top level war criminals from the Bush administration, despite its illegal invasion of Iraq and its admission of violation of international treaties against torture.

Nobody without inside knowledge can know for sure whether or not the Obama administration intends to support legislation extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. But why would they grant an interview clearly implying that they intended to support such legislation, and then turn right around and deny that was their intention, but without disputing any of the quotes in the article?

I can think of only one explanation. The purpose of the interview was to float a trial balloon on their intentions of extending the Bush tax cuts, in order to assess the public reaction as a means of guiding them in their final decision. If the public reaction is not sufficiently strong against those plans, then they will go ahead with them – once again giving in to the Republican Party and the corporate interests that they serve.

I feel that it was entirely appropriate for HuffPo to place some interpretation on Axelrod’s response to their interview with him. If he doesn’t agree with that interpretation, then he should be able to refute it with something better than simply “There is not one bit of news here” or “The story was overwritten”. By HuffPo interpreting the interview with Axelrod as they did, they emphasize to their readers what it appears that the Obama administration intends, and thereby facilitate an appropriately strong public response.


A few words on “bipartisanship”

I’m sick and tired of all the talk and efforts by the Obama administration towards “bipartisanship”. Robert Kuttner discusses Obama’s excessive bipartisanship in his book, “A Presidency in Peril”. He refers to Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he said:


Kuttner explains why this attitude is inappropriate to today’s political situation:


The Obama administration’s apparent back peddling on its campaign promise to terminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, along with its claim that they can’t pass tax cuts for the middle class without attaching them to much larger tax cuts for the wealthy is just one more example, in a long line of examples, of their excessive “bipartisanship”, otherwise known in this case as caving in to the interests of the wealthy and powerful.

If the Republican Party is threatening to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to their service to the wealthy, Democrats should call them on that. They should propose tax cuts for the middle class, and if the Republican Party votes it down, then they should bear the responsibility for that. The claim that tax cuts for the middle class must be tied to much greater tax cuts for the wealthy doesn’t hold water. I doubt that most American voters will appreciate those Republican tactics.

Rather than submitting to Republican blackmail with disingenuous statements like “We have to deal with the world as we find it…”, elected Democrats should fight for the average American – the vast majority of Americans. Republican attempts at blackmail should be called for what they are, so that they can be held accountable for their obstructionism.

Hell, post of the year.

Kudos!

...semingly a part of:
From European Socialist:


Right now, this moment, we're either in the "Teetering on the brink" phase or (if you lend credence to the HuffPo story), "Deciding on the 'lite' version of the unacceptable".

PB

They say if you throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it'll jump right out. But if you put the frog in a pot of cool water first and then slowly heat it, the frog will stay in the pot until it's cooked. They say it's even painless. I'm afraid we're becoming a country of cooked frogs.

the frog won't jump out.

:shrug:

:)

why the "base" is no longer enthusiastic.

K & R for the most likely explanation of this latest WH brouhaha.
That they also initiated it as the Debt Commission releases their draft is bizaare. It's ok to (temporarily of course) extend the Bush tax cuts for the super wealthy while they propose cutting social security? Even if they believed that was desireable, why would they couple the messages so blatantly? Are they trying to instigate marches on DC?
What is going on?

the people who got him in office.

Which is what the DLC noise machine is here to combat. It's quite brilliant, really. They stifle the noise, and when they can't, the WH backs off for a little bit and then does it later.

to push back. Stay silent and you have no right to fuss later.

Excellent piece...as usual.
Thank you...

peace~

It makes me more sad than angry, seeing all those links.

Yeah, Obama is no FDR. And the current GOP is NOT the same as in the 73rd Congress of 1933 FDR was so "radical", he even passed two Constitutional Amendments.

Let's see Obama even TRY to pass ONE bill, let alone a Constitutional Amendment.

Or, let's set the bar a little lower. Can Obama STOP taxcuts for the rich, SS cuts and unemployment benefit cuts - all GOP ideas.

sorry they did this before - just like congress said they did not know and then passed anything bush wanted - not sure who is writing the play book but it seems the same to me

before the all hope dies completely.

transference of what we wanted onto him and he is not anything we thought. I mean I knew he was a centrist but had not expected him to be so far to the right on a number of things for the people

What is with Axelrod? :shrug: Something doesn't seem right with him. He's such a downer..and at times seems duplicitous. He doesn't help his President with his behavior.

Whatever. I know it's hard for many to understand why we are seemingly being played games with...we Dems.. The activist supporters...that is.

Also, understand that some who still want to believe...are having hard times. We all wanted to believe. But, there's just so much of a pattern of behavior it gets harder and harder not to know that something is very wrong with this Administration.

Thank you.

they would have gained seats instead of losing them in this midterm.

Now they have an excuse for continuing the giveaways to the rich. Now the Dems, as well as the R's are playing a Reverse Robin Hood role of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.

We have no effective representation anywhere.

That's the real rub, isn't it? We're all adults here, and we understand that you don't win every political battle you fight.

But it sure would be damned nice to feel like we had a side fighting for us.

What a disappointment. :(

Hey! I brought a fly swatter to a gunfight. Guess I'll leave now.

& why the 'professional left,' or whatever the name of the week is, is pissed off.

I think it's obvious now that your last sentence is completely accurate. The people have no lobbyists, Congress belongs to the wealthy.

Better to accept it than to continue to hope and then decide what to do about it.

If they're going to let it happen they better fucking own it.
No more "I support the public option until I don't"

Thanks as usual for your clear writing, TfC. :thumbsup:

Either Obama is a coward or it's exactly what he wants. He doesn't fight for anything.

This isn't that difficult. He's the President. He has a bully pulpit unmatched anywhere if he would just use it. Announce that Republicans are raising everyone's taxes because they want to take care of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, The Walton Family, The Koch Brothers, and Paris Hilton.

This doesn't have to be passed right now. Slowly let it expire and beat the Republicans to death with it. Make Boner and McConnell the poster children of greed. And deficits. Boner and McConnell are holding YOUR kids future hostage for Paris Hilton and Randy Moss tax cuts. And Hollywood Elites!

How do you craft a message when Axelrod is shitting his pants. On Keith Olbermann tonight, they said the administration had a "communication problem". Yeah, it's pretty hard for anyone to hear you when your head is up your ass.

This is the line in the sand. It's a no brainer. Chris Hedges said, "This is the trench you die in".
It's now or never.

This is MY line in the sand. Cross it, and you've lost me forever. Raise my fucking taxes if you have to. And our household is below $90k. I'm a patriotic American. If we need the money, we need the money. My cuts were minuscule anyway.

Grow some balls, Democrats. Call their bluff. And then paint them as the party of HIGHER TAXES!

:applause:

This is the same pattern as we've seen before. As others have noted. As I noted myself in another thread on the topic.

n/t

I agree call their bluff. Let the tax cuts expire and draft a new bill that helps those households earning less than 50k a year. We earn just a little more than 50k a year and don't mind paying more to insure safety nets for those less fortunate than us.
edited to add let the public know daily that they are against helping the working class.

btw K&R

We've seen this dance before with health insurance reform, the bailout, toothless financial "reform", DADT repeal...

:kick: :kick:

Really nothing to add
I hope you are wrong

Great Depression. But, oh well, nothing we can do but cave. Again...

K & R

You do what is necessary or you do not. The Washington Dems did not do what needed to be done.

The election of 2008 gave a short term advantage to the Dems, in a time of crisis. The Congress and WH should have taken advantage of that opportunity -- a working majority in this country is short lived - and dealt with the economy and financial reform.

If the Dems had done their job, they would have been OK in 2010.

Well stated, TimeforChange! :applause:

It appears that the working class doesn't have a champion to represent their interest. What can we really expect. The vast majority in Washington, including President Obama, are multimillionaires. They have nothing in common with the working class.

FDR was a special breed of cat. Perhaps his being crippled, when in the prime of his life and having it all, had something to do with his identification with the poor working class. I have seen people who are arrogant as hell and then come down with cancer or some other debilitating disease and the metamorphose is dramatic. Nearly everyone of those who are charged with governing the masses retire their gated estates to lounge safely and blissfully in their mansions. The closest that they come to associating with the working class is when they are forced to convey their orders to their servants.

Oh, but don't totally despair. There actually is a solution. It is the one thing that the wealthy fear with dread. Its when the working riffraff UNIONIZE. That is the revolution that they fear the most. The destruction of the unions continues to be a prime objective of the ruling class along with protection and expansion of their wealth. Unfortunately, President Obama, unlike FDR not only doesn't support the unions, but has actually abandon them especially in the case of the Teachers' Unions. He is just another milquetoast status quo middle of the roader spawned by the DLC. As Hillary, another product of the DLC, observed; he gives nice speeches.

The actual quote is:

"There are concerns," he added, that Congress will continue to kick the can down the road in the future by passing temporary extensions for the wealthy time and time again. "But I don't want to trade away security for the middle class in order to make that point."

You took out the part where the article indicates it is summarizing Axelrod's comments by closing the first quotation. The whole "that Congress will continue to kick the can down the road in the future by passing temporary extensions for the wealthy time and time again" part of the quote is not Axelrod himself, but Huffpo. I admit, the Huffpo paragraph is ineptly punctuated. The "kick the can" stuff could have been quoting Axelrod directly and might have been left outside the quotation marks through sloppiness or error. But what is "that point" at the end of the quote? It seems to lack an antecedent point that may have been left out by Huffpo.

relevant. Note the three dots, pertaining to the discontinuaty of what I'm quoting from HuffPo.

Axelrod's comment about concerns that "Congress will continue to kick the can down the road ..." is not relevant. It says little or nothing about what the Obama administration intends to do. The most relevant point by far is that he is saying that the only way to pass the middle class tax cuts is to attach them to tax cuts for the wealthy. How does the issue you mention change the HuffPo interpretation?

...but you didn't include the three dots (ellipsis) you are talking about in the quote I complained about. The actual quote in HuffPo closes the quotation of Axelrod's comments and summarizes about kicking "the can down the road." Your quote of HuffPo does not close Axelrod's quote, implying it is a direct quote from Axelrod, which it is not. Then, as I said, the next sentence in the HuffPo piece that is a direct quote from Axelrod refers to a "point" that appears absent in the HuffPo summary. That point may have been an attempt to take pains to show that the administration is not in fact "giving in."

Regardless, the characterization by HuffPo that the administration is "giving in" would, if taken literally, mean that the administration was giving in to the Republican position, which is permanent restoration of all Bush tax cuts. There is no evidence of that.

I and many others consider "temporary" restoration to be giving in as well. What on earth is meant by "temporary"? They've already been in existence for several years, as they continue to add tremendously to the budget deficit and national debt that Republicans pretend to be so worried about. As far a we can tell, "temporary" simply means until Obama or some future Democratic President develops the political will to abolish them. It seems highly unlikely that Obama will ever do that, if he won't do it now. During his campaign he promised to rescind them, not to wait for them to expire. Now he apparently doesn't intend to even do that. If that isn't giving in, I don't know what is.

We're still going to be betrayed, but the reasons will be much more clear.

That's why I always kick and recommend every post I see from Time for change.

As for those who prefer to put their heads in the sand, good luck!

knocks the fluff out of recent posts here; supreme examples of just not getting it and being belligerent about that false take; yet the (0) chorus band plays on.

About a year and half ago I criticized Obama's back peddling on ending the Iraq War and Don't Ask; Don't Tell, and my post got booted. What happened? Has DU matured enough to allow criticism of Democrats, and did I miss a revision in the posting standards.

It's a positive change, for sure. We don't need to act like Rethuglicans.

Peace,
Tex Shelters
http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/glory-glory-we-have-tax-cuts-for-those-that-don%E2%80%99t-need-it/

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Exactly.

90% or something of all Americans DO NOT want the wealthy's tax cut extended. The only people who do are the 2% that are wealthy. Obama does not seem to care what the people think, just what the GOP thinks. He's only worried about GOP reprisals, What about us???? This is a huge winner for the Dems. Pelosi has it right. Obama seems too insulated. His advisors are not serving him well.


And why WHY won't anyone ask about how many Congress people this cut effects, huh? How many of their taxes would go up?

and then play the middle class cuts versus the wealthy. Let that play out.

:shrug:

I agree wholeheartedly!

If you want to negotiate, you don't give away your bargaining chip or your strategy before starting the negotiation. It makes me wonder who Obama is really defending in the tax debates.

http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/glory-glory-we-have-tax-cuts-for-those-that-don%E2%80%99t-need-it/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Bwahahahaha! I keed I keed.

K&R and thanks!

Even though I had hoped the willingness to compromise was exaggerated and badly wish to believe that such discouraging words are hyped right wing spin designed to discourage Democrats even further.

I had hoped the top Obama strategists would have taken the election results more firmly to heart. That millions of Democratic voters had been demoralized by all the compromises made so far. The Obama Team that campaigned so progressively then implemented their old fashioned 1990's strategy of moving to the right, compromising with the party that had crashed our economy and crushed our national security. Add to that tossing slurs at the 78% of Democrats who consider themselves progressive and it all became just too much for all the new voters brought on board with the 50-state strategy of 2006 and 2008. They must have wondered a hundred times just what their new party was doing by compromising in so many areas with the party that had destroyed our country.

They voted for strong Democratic change and didn't get it. They got mild Democratic change after it had been watered down by begging for one or two Republican votes. So they came to the Jon Stewart conclusion-- there is too much corruption on both sides. So-called Democrats who had won them over in 2006 and 2008 by educating them about Republicans being fiscally irresponsible and reckless on national security were not fighting against those ideas but compromising with them. Giving the nasty and cruel right wing more and more time to build up their hateful opposition and obstruction.

Maybe some of those discouraged Democrats were thinking like me that being Bipartisan just meant explaining how particular policies are fiscally responsible and how they enhance our national security. Be bipartisan with the Myth of the Republicans that they are those things. That's bipartisan enough. We didn't expect bipartisanship with lies like "the private sector can do it better" when medical costs are a leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA, we lost millions of jobs when the Bush tax cuts for the mega-millionaires were rolled out, and military privatization led to worse war profiteering and increased torture.

Democrats have a built-in marketing opportunity in de-coupling the tax cuts. Fight for the Obama Tax Cuts for 95% of us and absolutely refuse the Bush/GOP Tax Cuts for the top 2% that clearly failed to create jobs.

Maybe those painfully old-fashioned 6-State Strategy New Democrats (already old in the 90's) are relying too much on an endless supply of Yellow Dog Democrats like me (who always vote, mostly D with a little Green) when we are a dying breed. No one told the youngsters that even after the Democrats kick 78% of their base in the teeth and let BP control its own crime scene etc etc, we are still supposed to drag ourselves to the polls and vote D because Dang It, Republicans are far worse. Of course they are, but why have so many Democrats gone so far to compromise with them then? Diving for dollars.

Maybe some of those kids who stayed home have parents like me. Obedient Yella Dawgs who did as expected while our government kept getting pushed further and further to the right.

Evidence continues to accumulate as to the corruption and unsustainability of our whole system. As that evidence accumulates, people who care to think for themselves continue to rethink what this country, including both major political parties, has become.