Can Democrats Lose the Battle But Win the War?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 1st, 2011 4:38 am by HL
Can Democrats Lose the Battle But Win the War?
Ezra Klein notes that while the deal hashed out by President Obama and congressional leadership “doesn’t include revenue, doesn’t include stimulus, and lets Republicans pocket a trillion dollars or more in cuts without offering anything to Democrats in return… Democrats will have their turn.”
“On Dec. 31, 2012, three weeks before the end of President Barack Obama’s current term in office, the Bush tax cuts expire… And all Democrats need to do to secure that deal is…nothing. This scenario is the inverse of the current debt-ceiling debate… Next year’s deadline offers Democrats their only chance to negotiate from a superior strategic position. Republicans will still be able to refuse to raise taxes. But if they do, it won’t matter. The only way they can succeed in keeping taxes from rising is if the Obama administration and the Democrats stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them to extend the Bush tax cuts.”
Flashback Quote of the Day
“When you say it would seem they’ll have a significant amount of leverage over the White House, what do you mean?”
— President Obama, at a news conference last December, not seeming to grasp a reporter’s question about the Republican Party’s ability to use the debt ceiling vote as leverage.
Obama Surrenders
Paul Krugman says the deal reached last night to raise the nation’s debt ceiling “is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America’s long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.”
