Not Even Close

I reject the notion that the framework that President Obama and Republicans agreed to on Monday was in any way a true compromise. In a White House video release the President makes the case for the agreement. The Administration extracted a few promises from Republicans including an extension of the Obama tax cuts from the stimulus bill, a tax cut for all Americans on income below $250,000, an additional payroll tax to incentivize hiring, and extensions of emergency assistance for the unemployed. In return, Republicans received a two year freeze on income tax rates for the wealthiest 2% of Americans and the Millionaire Inheritance tax at historically low rates. Protecting tax cuts for middle class families is now only a liberal goal? Puh-leeze. Getting the economy into a true recovery by incentivizing hiring is a progressive idea? Sure. Keeping the unemployed out of foreclosure with unemployment insurance is only good for Democrats? That's a new one. Conservatives got almost everything they wanted, except perhaps an even larger reduction to the millionaire inheritance tax. The Democrats got nothing that is of ideological value on par with the Republican gain. Since when did economic pragmatism become solely a province of one party? Oh right.

Republicans held hostage every goal that Obama mentioned in his press conference remarks yesterday. The Republicans essentially planted a bomb aimed at the middle class and the entire economy and claimed that the only way to defuse the bomb was to accede to their demands. Is it a compromise to accede to the bomber's demands? On the one hand, the safety of the American economy, which is the Obama administration's penultimate goal, was safeguarded. On the other hand, there's a reason that every government (and even fictional government) has the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It spawns more danger for the citizens of their countries. Will Republicans be satisfied with this gift to the wealthy? Let's hope so, but there's plenty of reasons to expect them not to be: their stated goal is to cause the Obama administration to fail. Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their SPECTRE GOP cronies will keep holding guns to the heads of Americans and demanding that Democrats act like Republicans or they'll shoot.