Tax Cut Deal: Dean, Ex-Obama Advisers Lament President's Plan

[ProSense]

Sam Stein

Tax Cut Deal: Dean, Ex-Obama Advisers Lament President's Plan

WASHINGTON -- Obama's decision to craft a deal with Republicans on the Bush tax cuts may have been, as administration officials insist, the product of economic and political necessities. But it has created deep reservoirs of distrust with the president's ability to handle high-stakes negotiations and has compelled even former staffers to level blunt criticisms about the White House's politics.

"I think the president made a huge mistake in supporting any extension of tax cuts," said Steve Hildebrand, the deputy national director of Obama's presidential campaign and a strategist who has long grown sour on Washington. "We can't afford it as a country, and we should recognize that. We need his leadership and bipartisan congressional leadership on it. And the whole idea of negotiating with Republicans who won't negotiate in good faith, it is not the direction the president should be taking."

<...>

"We clearly have to deal with the deficit; it is probably the biggest problem facing the country," said former DNC header Howard Dean. "But you can't deal with the deficit from a political point of view if you say to Democrats, we are going to cut Social Security and Medicare and, by the way, give tax cuts to those who make a million dollars a year."

Antipathy, however, was saved as much for the process of securing the final tax cut package as for the substance of the package itself. Suggesting that the deal could die in the House, Dean echoed a question other Democrats offered in the hours after Obama's announcement: Was enough secured in return?

"I'm not so sure you can get the House to agree to this in conference committee," he said. "And what about the president's other priorities: Don't Ask Don't Tell, START, DREAM Act? I mean, do we not get anything for the $700 billion?"

Certainly, Democrats got something, perhaps even more than expected. Discussing the arrangement with the Huffington Post, senior administration officials stressed that even the labor federation "AFL-CIO did not think...we could keep" the 13 months of unemployment insurance. The actual cost of the provisions that the White House secured, meanwhile, was pricier than the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich -- $215 billion (including UI) versus $95 billion, all over two years.

more

The $700 billion number is inaccurate. Also, this isn't a done deal, the House and Senate have to agree to it.