Is Barack Obama really a terrible negotiator? Yes and no.
NPR’s Ari Shapiro reported a fairly damning piece about President Barack Obama’s growing reputation as a patsy in negotiations with the Republicans.
“Looking right now at the tax cuts — the White House [is] signaling willingness to pre-emptively cave on what is effectively a tax bailout to millionaires,” [MoveOn.org’s Justin] Ruben says. “I think it’s profoundly upsetting to people.”
This is part of a growing theme, especially on the left, but also adopted by a growing number of conservative commentators.
They see even last year’s big legislative accomplishments — healthcare, financial regulation, etc. — as fatally flawed by compromises with the GOP.
They point out that even after compromising on big issues, the president won exactly zero Republican votes in the Senate for his healthcare bill.
And his decision to end a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling won exactly zero GOP votes on a sweeping energy overhaul, a plan that died even though it was built around the Republican idea of cap-and-trade.
I think it’s a legitimate question, but I think the bigger problem for Mr. Obama isn’t the Republicans, it’s the Democrats he’s trying to herd toward solidified positions.
Writing in the Washington Post, Ezra Klein points out that Democratic leaders had the high ground on the tax issue. Most Americans simply don’t want to extend tax cuts for people earning more than $250,000 dollars a year.
It’s unpopular for populist reasons and it’s an idea that will balloon the deficit. As Klein puts it,
Democrats, it seemed, had won this one. They had the popular position, the president’s veto pen and control of the Congress.
But they simply refused to carry the ball over the goal line. Instead, they began negotiating with themselves, talking about millionaires’ brackets and short-term extensions.
This, of course, is nothing new. Franklin Roosevelt’s biggest obstacle policy-wise during the Great Depression wa his own party, who foot-dragged and kvetched all the way to the New Deal.
The simple truth is that most of Obama’s “free concessions” have been designed not to woo Republicans, but to rope in wandering conservative Democrats (and Joe Lieberman).
And playing that game, he pushed through some reasonably chunky legislation.
But that strategy appears to be tapped out. Now some leadership is called for.
Unless the President can find some big issues that his party is willing to rally around and fight for, negotiating with the GOP will be the least of his worries.
Tags: politics
John, I’ve gone back and reread your posts and mine. I can’t find where I put words in your mouth. However, you were insulting me and lot of other good people in your remarks about people who are “…not interested in information or fact, only his personal and political destruction. He continues to think that if he just explains it with enough information, enough times, that these emotionally-driven, propaganda-driven factions, will suddenly wake up and see the light.” The facts are there for everyone to see, we have sustainable debt, we have a ruined economy, a massive rural/urban divide, a massive illegal immigration problem, a decided lack of character in our gov’t, a Federal Reserve that is ruining us, over 20% real unemployment….that’s real. Yes, I do dislike the direction Obama wants to take us. I also dislike the direction many Republicans want to take us.
You rant about Fox and Palin and the Tea Party. Where’s the rant about MSNBC/CNN/CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS/NPR, Chris Mathews, Keith Olbermann, Moveon.org, Mediamatters, Soros??? Talk about “emotionally-driven, propaganda-driven factions”. Open your eyes sir.
Bret Clinton kept NK in check he moved forward in a big way the Middle East peace process, he stopped a genocide in the Balkins. In addition he managed the economy well and passed some very good health care reforms he also balanced the budget. A far cry from what we have today with this guy and what we had with Bush, from what I can see both Bush and Obama have one crucial thing in common, neither are actually qualified to lead.
I think we see today that everything is going to be given to everyone, unemployment benefits are once again extended and the Bush tax cuts are going to be extended to everyone.
Let the good times role. This government will never be able to actually cut anything they will just keep passing the buck to our children and our creditors.
Knuck, if we could pick and choose and only take the tax cut form those who “didn’t need it” I’d be right there with you. I’m fine with taking it from Rush, beck, Gore, the Clintons, Bushs, all the actors, muscians, sports players, Wall st types and most assuredly from the politicians and lawyers. But I’d leave it for the small businesmen and women who “make” over $250K that don’t really take home that much. You know how it works- you “make” $100K but you only take home $40K. You “make” $650K but by the time you get done paying everything and everyone you take home what? $80-100K maybe? Seems like a lot, but if you tax then ad they have to fire or lay people off, how does that help? And no matter what your “effective tax rate” is when the IRS plays for keeps you know you’ll lose. That’ my fear, more unemployed.
To me this is classic class envy. It’s so easy to say tax the rich guy. But what about some cuts in the spending? No one seems to want to tackle that. And the Fed is going to bail out the EU, that’s our money. The gov’t secretly bailed out GE and some other banks we never heard about. If that really saved some jobs then doesn’t the same logic apply to small businessmen?
You want to tax the mega wealthy, fine, but I think the limit needs to be a little more realistic.
The arguments from the democrats have been somewhat disingenuous. They keep talking about the republicans giving tax cuts to “millionaires and billionaires”. If that is what they are opposed to why have they not suggested making the cut off something like 5 million dollars, or even a million? Then all the arguments about hurting small business and everything else go out the window. I don’t think the democrats know what they are doing.
Nothing will ever get cut. We won’t raise taxes for anyone and we won’t cut unemployment benefits. They go for 99 weeks right now about two years, should we go for three years, maybe five, just make them permanent? Taxes should never be raised, ever on anyone?
If we can’t raise taxes on these millionaires or stop paying unemployment after 2 years, there is no way that this government will ever come close to balancing the budget they don’t have the stomach or leadership for hard choices.
Why make hard choices when there is no cost for making cheap and easy choices?
Mervel, he didn’t keep NK in check, he gave them a bunch of money in an agreement they never followed, remember the nukes they “didn’t have”? There has been no peace in the middle east. The Balkans? Where he was so in fear of US casualties that he carpet bombed civilians from 30K feet? I suppose that did stop the genocide. He was smart enough to get out of the way of the economy that grew starting under Reagan. But we don’t like to look at that, do we?
I agree about not being qualified to lead.
It occurs to me that all this talk of millionaires getting tax cuts/increases is a strawman. Just how many of the uber wealthy live in NYS and how many of them are dumb enough to keep their money where NYS can see it? Doesn’t seem likely to me. Seems like there’s a good chance we’ll just end up punishing small business people.
Sorry, I was thinking at the local level. Change that to how many keep their funds in the US vs those nifty Swiss or Cayman Island accounts.
We know Bret, you’re good at changing your point when the facts don’t fit.
Well Bret I was not a huge fan of Clinton, but you know I am a fan of results not necessarily ideology. We have to look at what happened when these guys were in office we can’t blame the old guys or say that they left bad things for the next guy. No the only way to evaluate them is to simply look at how things were and what happened when they were in office.
When Clinton was in office and the Republicans were in Congress, things ran pretty darn well and we had a very good decade. The proof is in the results. Its hard to argue with a balanced budget, low unemployment and economic growth. The Middle East was very close success Arafat made the choice for war though and they pay for Arafat’s choice to this day.
I am looking at what happened. He sold military technology to the Chinese!!!!