Kos: Getting rid of Bush tax cuts ... won't happen

He's right--Obama will cave here too.


The Bush tax cuts expire December 31, 2012. House Republicans will push legislation to extend them before the election (because they create jobs, or somesuch bullshit that is patently false). Democrats may hope to ignore the issue until after the election, but they won't be able to. The House and the GOP presidential candidate will make it impossible to ignore.

So Obama has said he won't allow tax cuts for the rich to continue. Democrats don't want them to continue.

But they didn't want them to continue last round, and they caved. So words and intentions are irrelevant to this analysis.

Now Republicans won't allow the tax cuts to be split into "middle class" and "rich" halves. They won't turn their backs on their rich buddies. Democratic efforts to decouple the two are doomed from the start. It won't happen. Period.

Democrats will face two options—letting all the tax cuts expire, and be accused of a massive tax hike just before the election, or extending all of them. Even if they vote to extend, they'll still be accused of raising taxes by Republican candidates, but for some reason they keep believing that their votes somehow protect them. They don't.

So after scared (or compromised) Senate Democrats help Republicans pass a full extension of the Bush tax cuts, what happens when it ends up on Obama's desk? Will Obama veto a middle class tax cut with his reelection just weeks or months away?

That's not a bet I'd take. I'd fully expect some blather about how "this isn't the deal I would've preferred," and a promise to fight to repeal cuts for the ultra wealthy the next time they were due to expire. That is, assuming Republicans don't manage to extend them indefinitely.
www.dailykos.com

But you're likely right that the Dems won't do this, will rather cave again.

And I have to say I can't see any holes in it. At the time of the 2010 Hostage Crisis, when we were all solemnly assured that Democrats had to extend the Bush era tax cuts or face the voters' wrath in the general election, we got . . . Democrats facing the voters' wrath. The ploy worked so well for Republicans that I couldn't see them not using it again when the "temporary" extension would expire in 2012. And how will 2012 differ from 2010? Except for the fact that Obama will be playing chicken with his own political hide on the line (which decreases rather than increases Democratic resolve), the Republicans will employ the same, boring winning approach for another two year extension.

And why shouldn't they? Fiscal responsibility? Don't make me laugh.

Are you fucking serious?

And the spinelessness of elected Democrats and the dispiriting nature of what voters could see for themselves had nothing to do with the shellacking (remember that word?) the Democrats took in 2010. And then, after getting their pasty white asses handed to them in November, the Democrats, with nothing further to lose, extended the Bush-era tax cuts in December anyway.

It was at least a double humiliation, in that the Democrats in the House and the Senate got the electoral results they feared anyway, and then compounded the error by doing the Tea Bagger bidding after all.

So, yeah. I'm fucking serious because I saw it happen with my own lying eyes. I can't say what you're seeing, but if the past is prologue in any manner whatsoever, the Democrats have once again succeeded in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

anyone could not see this as playing out. As Hartmann said, this is the third time that the Repubs have gotten what they want. It works! Their strategy works!

I think its a forgone conclusion. The only question to me is whether Obama knew this and was in this scam all along and played along for political theater purposes or if Obama really is that incompetent to let this happen in the first place.

dollars more that can be cut from social security, Medicare, Medicaid. No way, Jose. :patriot:

but the "temporary" Payroll Tax Holiday will ALSO be extended.

Does anyone really believe Obama & The Centrists are going to Raise taxes right before an election?

(I would put an rofl thingie in here,
but I'm not really laughing.)

Oh, wait..."America" is now synonymous with "Corporations"...and apparently "Republicans," too. I don't hold out high hope that Mr. Obama will step up to the plate.

.

There will be no vote on any extension in the Senate before the election, and they will expire.

Let's see who's right.

...this shit is getting more and more out of control. The President's little game of cutting deals behind leadership's back or pursuing his own fucked up agenda (i.e. putting Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid cuts on the table during negotiations) are fuckered. They backfired. They've blown up in everyone's faces except the Repukes.

PB

This myth that Obama "caved" on the Bush tax cuts is the worst kind of straight out lie and revisionist history. Without the extension, we would have gotten NO VOTE on DADT Repeal, NO vote on UI Extension (which means they would have expired in mid-December) and the tax cuts would expire for everybody, including people under $250,000.

Those were the choices at the time.

Oh, the GOP also got to kill the Dream Act.

Was nobody around last December, or are many people just fucking liars?

tax cuts... We always accused of fostering class war so let's have at it...

They should address this ASAP!!!

Are there 10-15 million new jobs just waiting to happen? Will all those poor corporations and wealthy individuals who were afraid to invest in America because of the uncertainty in raising the debt ceiling now put some of their stockpiles of cash into creating jobs for American people? Their motto has been that government doesn't create jobs, so I guess they're the ones who are supposed to.

Reality doesn't speak well for the likelihood of either millions of new jobs for Americans or giving extended unemployment benefits the infusion they're going to need come January 1, 2012. What will the outcome be for the 15 million and growing unemployed in the United States?

Each and every day President Obama, as he meets with the well off, he needs to repeat this statement he recently made. He doesn't need to tell the majority of Americans, just those who have benefited from his and Bush's tax cuts, the bank bailouts, the defense industry - those who've done so well off the backs of so many:

“As a country that values fairness, wealthier individual have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well — we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefited most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back.”