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What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.
But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.
And that’s bad news.
Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too.
OK, maybe this is just a head fake from the Obama people — they think they can win the PR battle by making bipartisan noises, then accusing the GOP of being obstructionist. But I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition. [my ems]
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Give the Rethugs an inch and they'll take a mile. I'll hand it to Barry for stating, unequivocally, that he didn't want to see any pork in the stimulus bill, but it just torques the Rethugs' collective sphincter for the middle-class and poor to get anything. And you know they'll threaten Harry Reid with filibuster and it'll be over. I'd be surprised if we even see a $1000 tax cut once McConnell et. al. begin throwing their usual tantrums.
I know Obama is a smart guy, so I'll assume he's had his eyes open over the past few years (but he's been in the Senate, so who knows) and recognizes the Republicans' MO for what it is. If he's gonna leave it to the Senate Dems to carry his water, he's in for 4 years of disappointment. I hope I'm wrong, but the only people Reid and Co. stand up to are fellow Democrats. Obama better have some way of keeping them in line or the economic situation will get far worse before it gets better.
The Republicans have had 8 years to line the pockets of the wealthy at the expense of our economy. When rich folks pay taxes on a smaller percentage of their income than I do, when corporations and wealthy individuals are allowed to move profits offshore with impunity, when a man who swindles $50 bln gets house arrest in his Park Ave. apartment instead of being a suck boy for the MS-13 gangbangers in Rikers, and when you have a political party devoted to seeing these trends continue, nothing will be accomplished if they are allowed to control the discourse.
I'm willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt that he knows all this. I just hope he has a good plan to deal with the Republicans and the egomaniacs in his own party who would rather let him fail than lose face. You know Feinstein and Rockefeller are gonna make him pay for the Panetta diss. They're gonna fuck him when he needs their support most. While I'm certainly hoping for change, I don't see how the crop of Senate Dems, a good portion of whom have been there forever, will let it happen. They've gotten pretty comfortable with the status quo and change will certainly affect them as well.
We'll see. I'm hopeful but not optimistic.
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