Call Their Bluff, Mr. President

[Better Believe It]

Call Their Bluff, Mr. President
By David Cay Johnston
David Cay Johnston is a Tax Analysts' columnist. The Washington Monthly calls him "one of the country's most important journalists" and the Portland Oregonian says his work is the equal of Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair and Lincoln Steffens. At The New York Times, Johnston received a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for exposing tax loopholes and inequities.
November 22, 2010

Will President Obama cave on yet another of his campaign promises, this time by giving in to Republican demands to extend all of the temporary Bush tax cuts? The president signaled this on his Asia trip when he said his principal concern was retaining the middle-income tax rates.

Republican congressional leaders have said they will let all of the Bush tax cuts expire unless the president bows to their demand that the top 3 percent of Americans be included in any tax cut extension.

Obama should call their bluff.

I don't think the Republicans are so stupid that they would let all the Bush tax cuts expire if they cannot continue tax cuts for billionaires and the affluent on all of their income. But let's assume that the Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are that dumb, or so beholden to the antitax billionaires funding their campaigns, that they would force universal tax increases.

This is a fight that Obama can win, and win handily, if he has the backbone to stand up for the vast majority and sound tax policies, and to take on the antitax billionaires who are piling up huge gains while unemployment, debt, and fear stalk our land.

A sudden reduction in take-home pay in January would seriously damage our fragile economy, not to mention provoke widespread anger and fear. The economic news would be so awful that a president half as eloquent as Obama could easily focus attention on the Republican all-or-nothing tax policies as the cause of this universal pain.

Please read the full article on how President Obama could have called the Republicans bluff at:

http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8BFDMX?OpenDocument

[w4rma]

1. Obama is a pushover. (nt)

[cleanhippie]

2. dupe

[cleanhippie]

3. I think he may be calling OUR bluff.

[Andy823]

4. My question is

What if the republicans don't back down? What will happen to the millions that will lose their unemployment extensions? What will happen to all those who really can't afford for their taxes to go up next year? This is something a lot of people here seem to be ignoring! Now I would love it if the president stood his ground, I really would, but I won't be hurt if taxes go up, or if the unemployment extensions are not renewed, so while I really do want the president to stand up to the bastards, and stop the tax cuts for the rich, I also understand why he is doing it this way, I am not happy, but I do NOT want to see millions suffering just because I want the president to get tougher.

I think democrats may be able to make this plan better as they go through it and start making changes, but I really do worry about those who will be hurt if the republicans don't back down, and this plan does not go through? Have you given any thought to those that would be hurt if something isn't done before the end of the year, or if the republicans stand their ground as many of them still want to do, and prevent unemployment extensions?

[Vinnie From Indy]

5. It is mind boggling that Obama did not make the GOP fight publicly for billionaires

One fact that seems invisible is that Obama could have always come back to this place of compromise if he had decided to fight. He simply chose to fold like a cheap suit. Not only did he fold, he invites more of the same later from the GOP.

[FBaggins]

6. The problem is that it was never a "bluff"

I think that they would be perfectly happy to watch Democrats narrowly kill this proposal. They would of course point the finger of blame and then immediately announce that they would pass an even less attractive (to us) bill a week into the new year and make it retroactive. There isn't a snowball's chance that the president would veto it.

Back in September he spoke in firm language:

Yep. And then he got "shellacked". It's amazing how few people understand the impact that has.

Fox News, in yet another poll it commissioned but hardly found worthy of mention, found that registered voters opposed the Republican plan of tax cuts for all. The Fox poll of 1,200 registered voters taken the week before the midterm elections found that 55 percent wanted to repeal all the tax cuts or just those for taxpayers making more than $250,000 annually. Just 39 percent favored keeping all the Bush tax cuts, with the rest unsure.

Among Democrats, 74 percent favored repealing all the tax cuts or just those for top earners. Among independents it was 53 percent. Among Republicans this was the minority position, but it still drew 36 percent.

Ignoring the fact that it's a Fox poll... the author is playing fast and loose with the facts (conflating two positions into "this position"). He pretends that there were only two positions polled when in fact there were three. The one he spins as unpopular was, in fact, the plurality position. The even larger problem is that Democrats can't decide which of their two positions is the right one, and the one the author wants us to bluff with is the one that is least popular with the electorate.

It's as if it's 4th and 10 and the coach has decided to poll the crowd on the right play to run. 45% say pass... 35% say punt... and 20% say run the ball. Then the supporters of "run" claim that the one thing we shouldn't do is pass because 55% say not to pass - so of course we have to run the ball.

[wtmusic]

10. It's Democrats who are killing the proposal?

That's the GOP meme, anyway. Why don't we instead point the finger of blame at Boner? And they can't "pass an even less attractive bill" without the Senate.

With a Senate majority and veto power, why are you rolling over and letting Republicans call the shots?

[FBaggins]

12. It's not a GOP meme... the people who are now opposing the "deal" are largely progressives.

And they can't "pass an even less attractive bill" without the Senate.

Right. And they won't have any problem with that. There are more than enough Democrats who are just fine with these terms to pass the bill, and there's almost no chance that Senate Democrats will try to filibuster such a "bipartisan" majority. I doubt they have the votes now, let alone in January.

You forget that it was House Democrats who retained a vestigial spine over the last two years. Senate Democrats lost theirs years ago, and the House Democrats will soon be entirely powerless.


With a Senate majority and veto power, why are you rolling over and letting Republicans call the shots?

You're under the misperception that party discipline holds up after a significant electoral defeat. As I said in the earlier post, Democrats do not have a single position. Let's take the three basic positions:

1) Retain cuts for all
2) Retain cuts for 98%
3) End all of the cuts

There are quite a few democrats who would rank the priority on those as 2-1-3 (which not coincidentally matches the priorities of the majority of americans). There is absolutely no chance that they would try to force #3 to avoid #1. Especially not when it would take a filibsuter. Senate majorities don't use the filibuster when they have the President as a backstop. He's either willing to veto or he isn't. If he's willing to veto then they won't filibsuter because there's no need to... if he isn't, then there's not going to stick their necks on the chopping block for him.

[wtmusic]

13. "He's either willing to veto or he isn't" - exactly my point.

Bottom line: the President has more power than anyone to rally party unity. It starts at the top - if the coach isn't a believer, send the team home.

[FBaggins]

15. And he's focusing on his own reelection, not progressive purity.

He's made clear that his priorities are that same 2-1-3. He's not going to veto #1 when the result is #3.

Which leaves us all with a steaming pile of the other #2. :)

[wtmusic]

18. If that is truly his focus, it may backfire

with him losing his base to an independent candidate.

If Obama drew a line on taxes, unemployment benefits would expire. Assign the blame where it belongs - the Republican Party - in the media, hammer it home, and you'd be amazed at how fast the GOP would come up with a reinstatement of benefits.

Obama, probably due to a lack of experience and leadership, is incapable of doing that.

[deaniac21]

11. If Cam Newton is the QB, then they are right.

[Andy823]

19. I agree.

This is all about the end game, 2012, and as you said if we don't do something now, hey will when they take control of the house, and then it will be "THEIR" bill, and when if democrats vote NO on it, then they will simply turn the table and blame it all on the democrats, and as you said, the president isn't going to veto it because the middle class needs the tax cuts and it would be used by the republicans to say that Obama doesn't want the middle class to have a tax cut!

Republicans have been saying NO to everything since obama got elected, and they don't seem to worry much about what the voters think, they keep saying that everything they do is the "WILL" or the people, not matter that the polls say otherwise!

[DearAbby]

7. I think the time to call their bluff is over

He folded the hand, while the dealer was still dealing the cards.








"READ MY LIPS" moment has come and gone.

[Overseas]

8. Frustrating that Democratic Legislators didn't push their colleagues more too.

I'm also mad at Democratic legislators who didn't push the damn Blue Dogs to approve the middle-class-only extension before the midterms.

The Blue Dogs were too scared of doing it. And they lost a lot of seats.
The progressives who would have approved the measure retained a lot more seats.

In the frightening unbridled smear campaigning era, it would have been great to have had a Democratic line in the sand to campaign on -- we want a stronger middle class. Republicans want to protect the richest 2% at the expense of everyone else.

But I was thinking that return to Democratic fundamentals was going to happen in 2009. After Republicans had crashed our economy and national security.

[FBaggins]

14. "The Blue Dogs were too scared of doing it. And they lost a lot of seats."

There's a difference between causation and correlation...and that's a tough correlation to support.

The progressives who would have approved the measure retained a lot more seats.

Sure... and Democrats (who would have approved the measure) lost so many seats that they now control fewer than at any point in most of their adult lives. But it's no more reasonable to draw a conclusion from that when it wasn't really a driving issue.

[Overseas]

16. I think things could have been different if we had made economic justice more of an issue

as a party.

Republican plutocratic policies crashed the economy. Supply side trickle down failed. We needed Democratic demand-side economic policies back in a big way.

[FBaggins]

17. The problem is that we were in control.

Any economic/social justice issue that we wanted to raise would draw attention to the fact that we had an almost filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, an overwhelming majority in the House and a Democrat in the WH... and things weren't getting better.

It's like the economy. We could (correctly) point a finger at Bush, but it just drew attention to the fact that we've been in power for two years and haven't fixed it.

[Overseas]

21. I'm talking coulda woulda shoulda here.

Still working on my personal Truth & Reconciliation with what has happened.

I do indeed mean that My Democratic legislators could have done more.

They could have let the president be the bipartisan politician, while they told the truth about GOP failures and hammered it home every chance they got. They could have planned a whole discussion sequence about how they wanted to be bipartisan but the GOP had changed too much. The Republicans used to want to be fiscally responsible, but they've driven up the deficits again. And gave a big tax break to the ultra-rich. And added layers of staffing and contracting in the domestic security arena, even though Republicans used to support smaller government.

So yes indeed, I'm ruminating on the past again. What my party could have done and should have done in preparation for taking power in this right wing dominated news environment, with sophisticated right wing PR in place from the GOP side. If they had already been working on impeachment or Truth & Rec in 2006, our president would not have needed to step away from it. If Truth & Reconciliation hearings were underway when the Bush Crash hit, that could have prompted a very necessary changes in our budget priorities too.

Most Democrats, and the millions who crossed party lines in 2008 to vote with us, know that Supply Side Economics has failed. 30 years waiting for trickle down, the gap between rich and poor widening to same levels as pre-Great Depression, and then the Bush Crash.

So we voted for Democratic demand-side policies to be reinforced. We want to go back to work rebuilding our national infrastructure, allowed to decay to finance the Bush Wars when the government hating Republicans were in charge. We know that extending unemployment payments and increasing Social Security payments stimulate the economy-- the money is spent. Demand side stimulus leads to more need for local products and keeps us afloat.

I wish more Democratic leaders were willing to stand up for demand side economics.

[howaboutme]

9. Strings are being pulled

Quote: "This is a fight that Obama can win, and win handily, if he has the backbone to stand up for the vast majority and sound tax policies, and to take on the antitax billionaires who are piling up huge gains while unemployment, debt, and fear stalk our land."

Good article but I don't think he wanted to win it. His backbone and agenda are being controlled by those pulling his strings, and they aren't average Americans. Most of them are Wall Street because the NYC money represents such a huge portion of the rich. Why do they earn so much money just to cut deals? They cut deals but they produce nothing of worth yet they are paid extraordinary amounts which is bad enough, but they pay no taxes to speak of (15%). They use their money to buy our leaders and then rob us with policy made so that their taxes are minimal. They are the club that Carlin speaks of. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

Yet we're getting our strings pulled too, and the media will make sure that this anger will soon pass. They'll come up with a Lindsay Lohan special, or have another one month remember Michael Jackson special to reinvigorate the royalties for his greedy promoters or have a sports special. It is about keeping us stupid and occupied while we're being raped.

[Scurrilous]

20. K & R

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: