Okay, Dems, here's your hammer. Use it.

[digitaldiscipline]

From Steve Inskeep's interview with Obama (emphasis mine):

INSKEEP: Let me ask you about something that we heard from one of our listeners.

The question that we got was: "Please ask him how keeping the tax rate for the richest the same as it has been for a decade creates one single job."

OBAMA: It doesn't, which is why I was opposed to it — and I'm still opposed to it.

The issue here is not whether I think that the tax cuts for the wealthy are a good or smart thing to do. I've said repeatedly that I think they're not a smart thing to do, particularly because we've got to borrow money, essentially, to pay for them.

The problem is, is that this is the single issue that the Republicans are willing to scotch the entire deal for.

And people wonder why I think the GOP is full of shit. And this doesn't even get into the social issues or the hypocrisy and inconsistency of wanting wildly unregulated business but blanket dictats about what consenting adults can and can't do together.

Comments

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

Yet again I'm hitting the imaginary LJ like button. Very good points all around.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I'm just waiting for my Dad to see this on my Google Buzz feed and call me a socialist again. *laugh*

[hermine-93.livejournal.com]

The problem is that he's wrong about tax cuts being the only thing that will motivate Republicans to obstruct something that America really needs to pass. They are obstructing everything right now. I think that what will happen is the Republicans will probably obstruct the putative compromise anyway, make some more demands, and then they will cut essential services on the grounds that we have a huge deficit, and then hammer Obama for letting them explode the deficit.

I also think that the putative compromise is a bit like if the Republicans wanted to hunt the poor for sport, saying "well how about we let you hunt them for food or their hides, but you can't just kill them for the sake of killing," and based on past experience, they won't enforce that last bit.

[hermine-93.livejournal.com]

oh and they will take credit for cutting taxes. I forgot that part of the Republican procedure. They obstruct it no matter what, demand that you turn it into the thing they wanted, repeat several times, hammer you for the negative consequences, and take credit for the positive consequences.

Oh, and they'll take credit for bipartisanship and insist that you didn't listen to them.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

bipartisanship, to the GOP, is getting everything they want. it has nothing to do with compromise. they've come right out and said as much, and M_M admits it up-thread.