Check in if you have ever governed anything and have ever had to compromise.

[RBInMaine]

I have served on numerous governing boards and committees and have dealt with a host of issues and policy matters for different organizations. There has ALWAYS been COMPROMISE in order to accomplish things and get things done. (This experience includes boards of four civic organizations and several professional committees.) I have been involved in numerous decision-making processes and policy/program creation processes. I have been involved in re-writing two sets of organizational by-laws. Without COMPROMISE all the accomplishment would never have happened.

Anyone out there ever actually serve in government or on boards and committees? Ever have to compromise? Ever have to work with others whose worldviews are entirely opposite of yours, and yet you have to meet in the middle to actually get something done? This is LIFE. I have done it many times, didn't always like it, but NEVER went away feeling I had "caved" or "capitulated." I always went away having gotten some or most of what I wanted and having stood my ground and insisted on some things while also having had to yield on others. This is how it is done in the real world.

Obama is spot on, has to actually GOVERN, and lives in the real world. PASS THE COMPROMISE NOW. (It would be good to hear other experiences from those who live in the real world too.)

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Where's the fun in that?

Where's the satisfaction of browbeating an opponent into submission, beating your chest, and taking a victory lap around the building to the cheers of your supporters? What good is governing unless you're able to play liar's poker with people's lives and practice brinksmanship along with high histrionics? You're a real killjoy, ya know it?!?

:sarcasm:

[CakeGrrl]

2. k/r

But don't tell people they aren't being realistic - it just ignites another outrage powder keg.

[lamp_shade]

3. Mom would say "Shut up all of you (7 of us) and sit down. I've had it up to here with

your bickering. I'll make the decision for you. Then you can all figure out the best way to live with it".
That's what my mother would say. Smart lady she was. It worked. She knew how to govern. Sound familiar?

[tomg]

4. I have. I served as part of a

three-person negotiating team on contracts where I work. I was also at the time a member of the Faculty Governance Committee. I helped negotiate more than one faculty contract. In one negotiation, we were facing the possibility of major changes in our health benefit packages. It was brutal. We gave in on some things; we won on others. We did not, though, give in on our most basic principles. We knew what our non-negotiables were. One of their solutions was to drastically slash retiree benefits. We held firm. Then they came back and tried to set up a two-tier system where new - and as of yet still unhired - hires would have reduced benefits. No way. Our non-negotiable was that we were a community.

I was still a relatively young faculty member at the time, and it was my first negotiation. There was an older person on the team who really was the moral ramrod for us. He taught me an amazing amount. Next contract negotiations, we were able to get partnership health benefits for our gay and lesbian faculty (and this at what was a formerly Catholic college and it was over ten years ago).

I have to admit that I don't have the range of your experience (although in the realm of faculty governance I have a fair amount), and I agree with your sentiments. However, this was, from my point of view, the worst negotiation I have ever seen. It is as if - to use my situation - when the admin suggested the retirees get cut we agreed to it and then threw in the new hires. In fairness, we were negotiating in good faith with an administration also in good faith. But I have also worked on deals regarding other areas of governance and dealt with some nasty folks. But figuring out if there is good faith on both sides is the first step.

I understand your position and respect it; however, I believe that if your negotiating team is not representing the best interests of those for whom they are negotiating, you vote it down. This, to me, is not a compromise. It is a capitulation.

[polmaven]

9. And just who is it

that the president is representing? Is he negotiating just for the progressive left or for all of the American people?

[tomg]

16. Well, since the Republicans

were clearly negotiating for the top 2%, whose interests would seem to be at odds with the common good, i would imagine that he was negotiating/representing/working on the behalf of the rest of us - the other 98%. When one considers the estate tax deal, that there is no help for the 99ers, that the top 2 get their break for 2 years and the unemployed get 13 months, that even the payroll tax break comes at the expense of social security ( and is the corporatist foot in the door), I would have to conclude that this is not a very good deal.

I certainly understand negotiation. I recognize the need to compromise. He did a lousy job, a really lousy job. I know the comeback is the unemployed. I was unemployed once for a very long tie, to the point where my benefits gave out and I was raising a child on it. I don't think the extension he got did right by them. I am not saying he sold us out or he lacks a spine, any of those things. I don't believe them or I have no evidence. It is not about motive for me. I am saying he did a miserable job as a negotiator.

[RBInMaine]

18. Then the R's ALSO "capitulated" on their core principle of permanent tax cuts for the rich.

[RBInMaine]

19. The ignorant hyperbolic ultra-left nonsense here is just astounding.

[tomg]

20. self-deleted

[Johnny Morales]

5. Since when has the right to disagree or criticize been hostage to having done the job

in question.

This is nonsense, and an insult to the American system as decrepit as it might be currently.

In a representative democracy it is neither expected nor desired that citizens have experience governing before they step forward to criticize the decisions of the officials they ELECTED to serve the entire community.

Such an expectation makes about as much sense as believing only people who own property should be allowed to vote.

It serves only to devalue the rights of the many for the benefit of the very few actually able to claim the privilege by performing (or purchasing) the deed!

[joeprogressive]

6. Yes, I have held political office and other leadership roles and

Obama is wrong on tax cut compromise. I am also an expert in health policy and Obama was wrong on health care reform.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. check in here if you'll support any crap with a 'D' attached to it.

[VMI Dem]

8. Kill this abomination now.

[bowens43]

10. check in if you will support the president

no matter how poor or misguided his policy decisions.

[budkin]

11. Give me a break trying to justify this pile of dog shit

[GOTV]

12. Strawman. We all support compromise. This was a cave in.

[LiberalFighter]

13. Agreed.

I don't have a problem with compromising. But caving in is a different story. And Obama and his team better get with it.

There was no reason to allow those over $250k to get their tax cuts.

[Clio the Leo]

14. I was 8th grade Senator one time, failed to get a pea ban passed. nt

[philly_bob]

15. I've been on boards, I've compromised. I don't think he got a good deal.

Why OPEN with the federal tax freeze? Why 2 years of tax cuts for rich and 1 year of UE? Why not 1 year for both? (Still, if he gets a START Treaty approval out of it, I'll reconsider.) Why not highlight the Republicans' hypocrisy on deficits by forcing a battle?

Plus, there seems to be a recurrent theme where he scolds his base, the progressives who elected him.

[harun]

17. Never a compromise that cost me 10 to 1. Nope, not once.

Because 10 to 1 isn't a compromise.