Is It the Last Straw for Obama?

I have defended the President for almost two years.  When health care reform was watered down to the point where it ended up as a minor tweak in health care insurance, I opined that Obama took what he could get and planned to build on it in the future. 

When the President bailed out the banks, I agreed that they were “too big to fail.”  It was a response to problems begun during the Bush era.  Without the bailout, we would have been plunged into worldwide economic chaos.

The President heralded his “stimulus package” as a jumpstart for the barely breathing economy.  Unfortunately, it didn’t include enough money and wasn’t allowed to last long enough to create the type of head of household jobs necessary to help what used to be working folks up and off welfare or food stamps.  I told those exasperated with the President that it was due to the recalcitrance of Republicans and so-called “centrist” Democrats. 

Just before the midterm election slaughter, the House Democratic Leadership was so weak that it chose to withhold tax cuts for working families and the abolition of the Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires based solely on the mere threat of a filibuster in the Senate.  I pointed to Nancy Pelosi, not at my President.

When the lame-duck session of Congress convened and there was no urgency to put the working class tax cuts to a vote, I was puzzled.  A few weeks ago, when a staff member in the Administration suggested that the virtual tax amnesty for the wealthiest Americans might be extended in order to achieve the tax cuts for those who make $250,000 or less, I was incredulous.

Voters had deservedly blamed the Democrats for four years of inaction and kicked them out of the leadership.  Here was (and still is) an opportunity to show the vast majority of all Americans, not just Democrats, that we are the Party of the people.  As Abraham Lincoln said and Obama repeated, “government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves.”  Amen. 

A few days ago, it all came crashing down when the President met with Republican leaders at the White House to discuss extending the Bush tax cuts for top taxpayers.  Obama seems ready to give Republicans what they want. 

What has me flabbergasted is that what Republicans want is not what the vast majority of Americans want.  There is no question.  Everyone except the rich and the Republicans (who are generally rich, especially those in Congress) want tax cuts for everyone but the rich.

Both economics and politics side with tax cuts for the middle class and against those for the wealthy.  Heck, taxpayers in the top 1% percent of income are not even going to miss a few hundred thousand dollars.  They currently obtain almost 25% of all national income, the highest since just before the Great Depression (insert comment about the irony here).

Rich folks are rich because they don’t spend a lot of money.  Therefore, the Republicans can’t argue that by keeping the tax cuts, they are stimulating the economy.  Top earners save more income than the middle class does by far, and they obviously have a heck of a lot more left over.  The rich have never stimulated the economy for others.  They have stimulated it for themselves and kept it for themselves.

You know how the Republicans are moaning about the budget?  Well, tax cuts for the rich will cost $61 billion in 2011.  Just 2011.  Got hypocrisy?

The President was elected by regular folks.  If he backs down on the Bush tax cuts, how does he explain it to working and middle class families still upside down because of the Great Recession?  All it achieves is allow the Republicans to do another favor for those who helped create this lousy economy but are wealthy enough not to feel it.

I don’t agree with Robert Reich much. He served under Clinton and like many who did, turned on Bill after jumping ship.  However, I must admit when he has a good idea.  Allow me to quote.

“The only compromise [the President] should be prepared to make is to extend the Bush tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent (rather than the bottom 98 percent), and for two years rather than ten. The top 1 percent begins at around $500,000 rather than $250,000. 

This would allow the President to even more sharply illustrate the extraordinary concentration of income at the top, while robbing Republicans of their debating point about small business (just about all small business owners with payrolls earn under $500,000).”

Mr. President, don’t do a deal for the sake of getting something done.  Whatever is achieved by such a Faustian bargain will not be worth losing those like me who have been defending you for what seems a long, long time.