What is the point of having Obama and the Democrats in power in Washington if what we get is an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans in the midst of the worst recession in memory?
You know we are in trouble when John Boehner and Mitch McConnell seize the podium to praise Obama for coming around to their side on this issue.
Obama's capitulation to the Republican minority on tax cuts for the very rich is an economic and political disaster. But mostly, it is a completely unnecessary compromise.
Republicans are still the minority party. In January, they will take control of the House--but they will still not be close to the two-thirds majority in Congress they would need to override a Presidential veto.
Nor do they have the American public on their side. Right before the mid-term elections, polls showed that most voters opposed extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans.
Back in November, David Cay Johnston, author, professor, and former Pulitzer Prize winning economics reporter for The New York Times, wrote a blog on the website Tax.com headlined "Call Their Bluff, Mr. President."
Johnston pointed out that Fox News, of all channels, commissioned a poll showing 55 percent of respondents wanted to repeal all the Bush tax cuts or at least those for taxpayers making more than $250,000 annually, and only 39 percent favored keeping all the Bush cuts.
Politically, Obama would be the clear winner in a stand-off with the Republicans over taxes, Johnston wrote, because it would be so dumb of Republican members of Congress to sock it to the majority of Americans in January because their wealthiest contributors didn't get their tax cuts renewed. By refusing to extend unemployment benefits and tax cuts for the middle class, the Republicans would create a disaster:
rest at http://www.progressive.org/rc120710.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+progressivefeed+%28The+Progressive+Main+Feed%29
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