Barack Obama has negotiated a compromise with the Republicans, who prolonged the continued under Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The protests left Democrats are more violent than ever.
William Hiscott
"Obama to draw a line in the sand, here and now. If the Republicans maintain their blockade and allow the tax cuts leave, he should tell the nation the truth, that he does not accept the extortion attempts. Higher taxes would be politically risky, but for a president, the voters do not gradually take more seriously because of his anxiety, a turn-would be just as risky. It is time that he shows his voters the opposite. "Thus argued the progressive economist Paul Krugman the beginning of last week in The New York Times, a deal with the Republicans.
confirmed two days later, a political rule of thumb about Barack Obama's presidency: if Krugman suggests something is done the opposite. A compromise with the Republicans had been found, Obama said at a hastily convened press conference in mid last week. The bitter 2001 and 2003 by President George W. Bush against the opposition of the Democrats put through temporary tax relief be extended for two years. The compromise includes the controversial and repeatedly denounced Obama during the campaign cut the top tax rate on annual incomes over a quarter million dollars from 39 to 36 percent was extended.
to speak instead of blackmail, Obama took a different word for the behavior of the Republicans in the negotiations: "hostage taking. Because the Republicans had made clear for weeks: Without continued tax breaks for top earners, the discount for the remaining 98 percent of the population. Moreover, they threatened in the Senate, the financing of unemployment benefits for two million people to block. negotiating "with hostage-takers" We do not, "Obama said. "Unless it is bad for the hostages. There are people who would get no more without that compromise their unemployment benefits. I permit not that this man is being harmed. "
Since then, progressive Democrats protest inside and outside of Congress than ever before against the President. "God damn it wrong" and a betrayal of Obama's own electorate, this capitulation to the Republicans thundered the progressive commentator Keith Olbermann. Influential supporters of the Democratic Party announced, not for Obama's re-election in 2012 to donate. At sites where the outrage against the long-lasting as a weak president shall in any case for months, is even seriously debated whether to support in the primaries a truly progressive Democrat, as the former presidential candidate Howard Dean, against Obama.
Even on the Internet in recent years to represent the Obama supporters degenerate DailyKos blog to read "harsh criticisms of the" republican president. The traditional comedy show "Saturday Night Live," which in 2008 weeklong diagnosed with satires on the then vice-presidential candidate of the Republicans, Sarah Palin, had operated indirectly campaigning for Obama, the President of the Stockholm syndrome, the identification of the hostage to the hostage-taker . Obama take over the Republican ideology to the point that he, who is assumed by many rights, it is really not an American, even slowly raise doubts whether he was even born in the United States.
is particularly great indignation in Congress, where the Democrats nor the Majority have einnnehmen elected in November to the Republicans their seats early next year. The Democrats in the House, which had decided a few days before the announcement of the compromise tax relief for all classes except the maximum rate announced, that the group disagreed with Obama and the Republican congressional leadership negotiated deal. Nearly three dozen Democratic members made it clear in an open letter that this was their last word on the matter.
criticized the Senate influential Democrats like Charles Schumer, Pat Leahy and Mary Landrieu the deal as a bad compromise. The only socialist in Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, held on Friday last week, a fiery and tenacious speech to which Fidel Castro would even have been proud. More than eight hours Sanders criticized all aspects of the compromise. He denounced the "criminals of Wall Street" and the super-rich as the cause and now benefit from the recession: "The American economy has become a nightmare for millions of families. We see the collapse of the middle class. And with this agreement we will provide enormous tax breaks millionaires and billionaires. This is crazy. "
Although it probably since the thirties, was hardly so much class struggle in the Senate, as in Sanders' speech, analysts admit the Democrats left hardly a chance to block the compromise. Because the political situation in Washington has changed since the casualties of the Democrats in the congressional elections in early November, and the government will be prepared. From January, the President must make do with a Republican majority in the House, if he wants to achieve anything in Congress.
In the Senate, Republicans will continue to be in the minority, yet they can easily block all bills, because almost all of the templates can only be adopted by a majority of 60 percent of the vote. Therefore, they argue that Obama's Democratic supporters, must the president now has the majority in the political center of the congress found that at moderate politicians of both parties, even if this annoy the progressive democrats.
To promote such a policy, presented Obama, former President Bill Clinton at a press conference. Clinton lectured half an hour about how well the method of "triangulation" I worked for him in the nineties. In this model, the president is above the factions of both parties and makes use of "reasonable" ideas of right and the left.
Robert Reich, who was Minister of Labor under Clinton, disagreed with the analogy. The economic situation of the United States in 1994, when the Republicans after the first two years of the time Clinton had won control of Congress, was not "with the current" great recession comparable. Moreover, the Republican strategy, the government through the reduction of government revenue was crippling, at that time was just as wrong as it is today. He advised the Democrats that reflecting back on their principles and "the power of the wealthiest among us to limit."
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