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Obama's Tax Cut Debacle: When Compromise is the Enemy of the Good
I think we need a new aphorism or analogy to counter the old saying, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” This is the principle that President Obama has once again offered up, this time after disastrously caving in to the Republicans over tax cuts for the rich.
A new, contrary adage should warn against compromising to the point at which you end up supporting something vile.
I asked some friends and readers for ideas. “Drowning the baby with the bath water,” was one thought. My younger brother Paul suggested going biblical: “What good is it to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?”
Another friend proposed something a bit less lofty, though eloquent in its own way: “Neither delicious bread nor groaning hunger improves a shit sandwich.”
In the wake of the deal on tax cuts, President Obama has felt obligated to defend himself from a huge wave of revulsion coming from those on his left—in the words of CBS News, to “[Hit] Back at His Liberal Critics.” In a Tuesday press conference he stated:
This notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much—this is the public option debate all over again. We pass something that Democrats have been fighting for for over 100 years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get...somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.
Well, this time around, Obama won nothing so significant as health care reform. And it came at a terrible political cost. He effectively conceded that, even as they hold the White House and the majority in the Senate, the Democrats will allow Republicans to drive policy over the next two years. Compromise itself has become the enemy of the good.
In the press conference, Obama compared the Republicans with hostage takers for their refusal to extend unemployment benefits without a concession on extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest. The president said, “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers—unless the hostage gets harmed...In this case the hostage was the American people.”
Obama’s analogy failed him horribly. As the National Review’s Dan Foster tweeted, “Don’t negotiate with hostage takers, unless they harm the hostage? Hopefully that isn’t official FBI [Hostage Rescue Team] procedure.” Such a policy, of course, would only encourage the hostage takers to harm more innocents. And as things stand, it looks like that’s what we’ll have coming from conservatives over the next two years.
Back in August, when Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs first unloaded on the Left, deriding progressive critics as impossible idealists, I took the lesson that it was naive of us to expect the president to enjoy being pressured by the social movement constituencies that helped to get him elected. We had been charmed by the mythical FDR parable in which that New Deal president supposedly told a progressive agitator, “You’ve convinced me. I would like to push forward these changes. Now go out and make me do it.”
I think it should be clear by now that this is not a “make me do it” president. We saw with Organizing for America—which was meant to carry forward the activist energy of the 2008 Obama campaign—that the administration did not want a feisty and independent-minded grassroots. It wanted loyal and uncritical foot soldiers to carry water for the White House and its proposals.
Regarding this latest attack, I’m glad that Obama feels it necessary to scold the Left. I think the White House is feeling a backlash to its new compromise that is far harsher than anything it expected. And while I’m not convinced that corporal punishment is generally a good pedagogical instrument, maybe this lashing will stay in the administration’s memory.
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57 Comments so far
Show AllDon't count on anything the left says to sway this White House. Time after time, they've done nothing but show disdain for those on the left who voice outrage over what they do.
What a lot of people assume, as this author does, is that Obama is compromising with the Republican's. He's not, he's conspiring with them. Just look at who he chooses to appoint or who he chooses to work with in the Congress.
Obama's administration if a far worse enemy to the people than even Bush Jr. He is a lost cause. One which must be replaced in 2012. The only thing is, there doesn't seem to be any viable threat from the left for the upcoming primary, let alone the general election.
Obama never compromised on anything.
Obama's first two years in the white house are a legacy of capitulation.
If the past month is any indication, Obama has left capitulation behind and his next two years will be a legacy of collusion wherein neither the Democrats or Republicans attempt to hide the obvious good cop/ bad cop game they are playing to maximize the amount of corporate money that flows into their coffers.
unfortunately in a 2 party system we'll be stuck w/ a repub president next time - SO BE IT - what the hell is the difference?
Actually the difference is the left may wake up and fight again - it has completey given in to obama -
and if the economy is going to fall again might as well make it happen on the retugs watch - instead of it happening on obama's watch and then the rethugs will say ""SEE progressivism doesn't work"
when it was never even contemplated........
when the right can steal language they can make people believe anything.....
up is down and 1+1=45
The precious metals breathe a sigh of relief as instead of raising interest rates the Chinese have increased banking reserves to slow down its growth.
Now that makes some sense!
Barry's arguments are based on the idea that it is responsible to be risk averse and to give up on what one really wants in order to get what one really needs. The problem is that Barry is being much more than risk averse. If Coach Barry ordered his team to punt from the 50 yard line with a fourth and one, that is being risk averse. When Barry orders his team to punt with first and goal from the one yard line, that is not risk averse. That is aiding and abetting the other team.
Barry is not a coach and his actions are ruining the lives of millions more people with each passing day.
Obama's tax deal will exacerbate the negative impacts of the 2008 meltdown for 95% of the US population, and the "temporary payroll tax holiday" component of that deal will start the funding unravelling process that will destroy Social Security. This is Obama's plan B for destroying Social Security since his deficit reduction committee's efforts to gut Social Security failed.
I like the coach analogy as a simple way to express the ridiculousness of Barry's arguments. In any event, I know the stakes are a great many orders of magnitude greater than those of a football game. I strongly believe that Barry and his R friends, with complicity by many of the Dims, are trying with this legislation to put the final nail in the coffin of the US middle class. All that is left is the burying.
And the eradication of the US middle class is a big step in their plans at enslaving and/or eradicating 98 percent of the world population. These are very ambitious fiends, and they think they are just getting started. However, the world is a big and unpredictable place, so we will see.
It's not a compromise Obama really is a republican.
Compromise is the enemy of the giving in to the other side.
I have not yet begun to fight....my own side.
I like the quote, "Compromise is the Enemy of the Good", but I gotta nitpick a little.
From the article: "Well, this time around, Obama won nothing so significant as health care reform."
Obama never "won" anything on health care reform! What he created was a private insurance mandate. His "reform" is 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag.
From the article: "I took the lesson that it was naive of us to expect the president to enjoy being pressured by the social movement constituencies that helped to get him elected."
I think the word your looking for is not "naive", but "uppity".
The author gets a few facts wrong, like when he says Obama "first unloaded on the left in August".
Anybody who isn't afflicted with terminal denial syndrome (TDS) has watched Obama and his leiutenants "unload on the left" from the time he won the primary in 2008.
The author's suggestion that the current pushback might influence Obama (final paragraph) confirms that he is afflicted with TDS. Obama and the Democratic Party's sole mission is to maximize corporate contributions.
Obama is the best corporate money magnet the Party has ever had.
This is another one of those Monday morning quarterback apologies by the same liberal intelligentsia who so eagerly marketed Obama as a messianic redeemer prior to his election as President. Why don't they just fall on their made in China swords and admit to the inherent corruption of the two party system whose main mission is to service the interests of the oligarchy? Obama is just doing his job as First Caterer-in-Chief to the Plutocracy. The difference between Bush(R)and Obama(D)has never been about substance, merely about style.
Chaokoh:
No, he's naive, but that just means we have to get uppity to make up for it. You might say we have to take the lead, since he is not a leader. Perhaps that would shame him into taking on his proper role. If we do that we make him about as useful as the tits on a boar, as the saying goes.
Apparently this legal beagle has never actually been in a courtroom or tried a case. He seems totally nonplussed at the idea of an adversary proceding that does not take place on a basketball court. My God, hasn't this dude ever been in a fight, or at least an argument? I'd like to get into the Oval Office and yell at him for a while. Maybe he could be so provoked he'd take a swing at me; it would do him a lot of good. I would thereupon shake his hand and offer my congratulations.
I now think that he is naive and incompetent and corrupt.
He cannot be shamed or motivated or reformed. He is an empty suit, and amoral, and bought and paid for. I think if he were a local businessperson and acted the same way, and if we knew what we now know about him, no one would hesitate to say this. But somehow the presidency gives him some sort of aura, and people are struggling to believe that the president of the United States could be such a monster, such a lightweight, so corrupt.
The words "corrupt" and "liar" are almost too weak to describe this politician, since he has taken those two things to levels beyond anything we have ever seen.
He was groomed by the DLC and Wall Street way back before any of us had ever heard of him. He was coached and scripted all along the way. Everything he presented to the voters during the campaign was part of a sophisticated and carefully crafted deception.
"He was groomed by the DLC and Wall Street way back before any of us had ever heard of him. He was coached and scripted all along the way. Everything he presented to the voters during the campaign was part of a sophisticated and carefully crafted deception."
That brings me to my next question. Who is next on the "grooming" list?
Quote: "I think we need a new aphorism or analogy to counter the old saying, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” This is the principle that President Obama has once again offered up, this time after disastrously caving in to the Republicans over tax cuts for the rich."
We also need a new aphorism to replace the idea that Obama "caved into the Republicans." He didn't cave into anyone. He merely revealed for the umpteenth time that he is a Republican/ corporatist/ conservative, and he ran the most duplicitous, cynical campaign in American history.
At a time in our nation's history when we desperately needed a real leader, we got an imposter who will, unless checked within his party or aggressively challenged from outside his party, destroy what little remains of our "country" and transform it completely into "The United Corporations of America."
The game that Obama and his behind-the-scene supporters are playing could easily result in the complete destabilization of this country and a subsequent police state crackdown on dissent. (It's already happening, of course, under the pseudo-leadership of our pseudo-president.)
I much prefer Ralph Nader's description of Obama: "He's a con man. I have no time for him."
I am feeling kind of happy now about throwing away my vote and letting Bush win in 2000 now. Every last f*cking word Ralph Nader said about these money hungry whores and the theft of our government has turned out to be true.
Bush had his neocons, Obama has his neolibs.
Obama is a complete jerkoff-
DEBT is bad so let's give out tax breaks to the richest and explode the debt in the next 2 years.....
Social Security is in trouble so let's decrease the funds it receives by 35%.......
That'll help!
As I said what a jerkoff!
I've been really surprised that the defunding of Social Security has gone COMPLETELY unnoticed by anyone I know. It's there in the articles, they just don't understand what it means. When the Democrats start attacking Social Security, nothing is safe.
It's high time we have a new party, or at least a new candidate to replace Obama in 2012. He's a one term president, and good riddance. Go back to Chicago. We should have known...
Worse, he's his own circle jerk.
Trylon
it should read "When Fascists are the enemy of Justice"
I have absolutely ZERO use for Obama - I think a repub president would be better as it would get the lame apologist dem's lefties off their asses.....
I watched a woman interviewed, who had known Obama's Mother. She said that his Mother had a style of compromise and was unflappable. I think that he came in to Office with sincere intentions. But he picked those who worked for Bush, to form his policies.Then he failed to stand up for those core issues that he campaigned on. He wanted Health Care because his Mother had to worry about Bills, but that desire faded under opposition. He wanted to regulate Wall Street and that was watered down to nothing.
I think that he is no Poker Player and would rather give in to the opposition than get into a fight. That might work as a mediator but not if you are running a Government.
EVERYTHING obama does is done to enrich the oligarch's..... end of story....
I'd kindly submit that you quit being naive......
pooka47401,
"I think that he came in to Office with sincere intentions. But he picked those who worked for Bush, to form his policies."
These two sentences together kinda unravel everything you're trying to say about Obama having good intentions. IF, and I stress IF, Obama had good intentions then he would NOT have picked any of these people to run his administration.
That he did choose to populate his administration with the Bush and Clinton crowd who together caused over ninety percent of the damage we are facing should tell anyone all they ever need to know about where this man stands.
As for your last line, giving in would definitely NOT work for a mediator. By definition, a mediator is one who is supposed to bring two sides together, not someone who ignores one side and gives the other all that they could want.
If he had good intentions why did he say nothing about the massacre by Israel upon Gaza. He wasn't even in offie yet and already showed what his intentions were.They were not good. he confirmed when as President he made his first action going to AIPAC. Good intentions? I haven't seen that.
A political vacuum is emerging in America - the 30% or so of voters that are liberal. We are unrepresented and abandoned by Obama, the man we voted for. It is said that nature abhors a vacuum; it will be interesting to see how this vacuum is filled.
I agree--and I am desperately waiting for some real progressive candidate to step forth and announce his/her candidacy so I can join that movement. I think there are millions of similar voters who would do the same thing.
Ralph Nader, recruit someone fast, or better yet step into the void. How about you as a vice presidential candidate teaming with a true progressive? That way you could chart the course of the campaign while your running mate (presidential candidate) was the one who did most of the campaigning?
Hell, I don't care what your role is! Just do it!
True, Right now we have a party with no soul, one with no guts, and one which is certifiably insane. Where do you turn?
The message Obama got from the last two elections:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. President,
Please give all our money to the rich. Cut social programs so you can give them even more. Keep Guantanamo open. Keep expanding the wars. Increase the military budget. Defend every expansion of Presidential authority and limitation of citizens rights that Bush started. Kill civilians with drones. Assassinate people abroad, including U.S. citizens. Call your former supporters sanctimonious. Just ignore us.
Thanks,
The people who got you elected
I hope that you sent this to whitehouse.gov
When Obama said "they're fucking retards" and "where else are they going to go"
he wasn't just talking about the professional left, progressives or even his dem base - he was also talking about the democratic ELECTED congressmen!
Do as I say OR ELSE!
this guy has no shame!
Obama is no different from Dubya in expecting his base to be a bunch of brain-damaged dunderheads cheering for anything he does along with making up spin to justify the wrong actions. However, there is more to this tax cutting than what this article covers. Unlike other nations where people would actually protest such absurd taxation policies, our electorate is "nice" enough to accept and even fight shamelessly for more such abuse. It is laughable that there are still many among the poor and middle class who will fight shamelessly to defend tax cutting for the rich because they are used to believing that they too will be "rich and famous" like them even when the odds against them show otherwise. They will not even take a few minutes to realize that the costs of living continue to going up while those "tax cuts" remain smaller and irrelevant year after year. It is no wonder that Washington and the wealthy/corporate elites continue to laugh their ways to the banks at our expense with such shameless actions such as extending tax cuts and loopholes for the wealthy/corporate elites.
What is Washington's message to Working Class America? Their message is "Here, take a few bucks and do what you want but stop bugging us for services. Get lost and find your own.". What do most people do? They "accept" and take the abuse. ::(
P.S.: That was no "compromise". It was a forced concession into more ABUSE. IMPEACH OBAMA !
Jennifer, its even worse than that. Take any basic economics class at the university level and you'll find out that businesses (at least those who aren't totally corrupt) base their salaries on take home pay, because that is what workers really see.
The only thing that these small, crappy tax cuts for the average worker will do is to depress wages even further, while lining the pockets of the business owners and already wealthy investor class.
This goes along with the other great lie that those who serve the wealthy tell about raising working wages. They always say that raising wages will cause prices to go up, just as we've all heard "Do you want to pay five bucks for a tomato."
The truth is, when we are talking about the average worker, wages do NOT impact prices, wages come out of PROFIT. In other words, if they actually had to pay the workers decent living wage salaries, then profits will diminish and therefore the already wealthy will receive less money.
The dismantling of our public education system isn't just about profits, it is also about keeping the majority of the population ignorant to how things really work. Same goes for the continuing "professionalization" of knowledge. As if only a PhD can weigh in on matters of economics, energy policy, or foreign policy.
Underneath the "crappy tax cut" from Social Security withholding is not just a capitulation but a vile calculation by Mr. Obama. Imagine that he had ordered the tax cut to be from the withholding of Federal Income Tax. The consequence would have been that wage earners will find out in the spring of 2012, an election year after all, that they will either get smaller refunds or must pay larger remittances to the IRS than anticipated!!!Now that would generate a storm of new anger through the land, especially from the generally better earning "independent voters" and thereby ensure that not only the Presidency but also the Senate would go to the Republicans in 2012. Lots of Democratic politicians including the current president would become "jobless" (but painfully because they can always become hired by big corporations and/or write books) in January of 2013. Robbing the SS fund is another can that our feckless president can kick down the road.
KrazyKatz and Crowsnest, I completely agree with what each of you said. Keeping a small business alive is much harder today than it was 20 years ago. I have taken basic accounting, economics, and finance courses that have given me clues about how our crooked system works. Looking at how the greedy drug, insurance, and manufacturers specializing in products to assist seniors are trashing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in their advertisements, I suspect that they are not only experimenting on ways to trick seniors but also how to trick the middle aged before they turn senior so that they won't have go through a lot of efforts into brainwashing them.
The notion that Obama represents something other than what the majority of democrats and republicans support is simultaneously dense and phantasmagorial.
In fact, there is no one who is more representational of the the combination of religious delusion, arrogance, deceit, and smug indifference which is the hallmark of imperial power.
To focus so much of the criticism at Obama is misguided because he is simply doing what the majority of the feeble-minded windbags in Washington can consider "common ground."
Obama is culpable, but no more than are the people who choose (and chose) to support him and who continue to pretend that the democrats are significantly different than their co-conspirators in imperialism.
As with how they attacked Bill Clinton, the republicans despise Obama because he is seen as being better than them when, in fact, he is one of them. The same is true of Obama's "party". Obama is the soloist standing in front of both sides of the chorus in this temple of greed.
They are almost all singing the same song in worship of the same power. Sure, there are some voices which are softer and don't carry the tune very well and those who try to sing a different version, but they just get drowned out by the more ardent voices. You don't get into the choir without some approval by the church masters.
Good points. I would add one thing. People ask "if the Democrats are so bad, why do the Republicans attack them?" The idea is that the Democrats must be doing something right, or must somehow be a meaningful opposition force against the Republicans, or else the right wing would not be relentlessly attacking them.
Here is why the right wing attacks Democrats - it works to promote their careers; it draws liberals into phony and meaningless battles so that the right wingers can control the national political discussion; it crushes out any and all slight hints of left wing politics before they can be discussed or considered; it forces Democrats to move to the right.
I agree with you that the right wing keeps the Democrats at their careers and phony and meaningless "battles" to the point of keeping true left wing politics out of the picture. However, the Democrats are not spineless. Most of them are shameless and "bold" enough to move to the right wing on their own. They will pretend "sympathy" and then put us in anger and tears. As a matter of fact, if one were to vote on candidates mainly on issues and principle instead of getting starstruck by phony corporate polling and personality nonsense, the Democrat Party would be seen for what it really is today, a big hollow empty party ready to play puppets with the Republicans.
Yep. I agree.
The reason why the regressives attack the phony progressives and vice versa is to give the impression that they aren't all working toward the same ends.
The actions that the democrats take, the talking point counter reality that they puke up with the same enthusiasm as their conservative bretheren, and the outlandish lengths that they have to go to explain why they just never can seem to get any of " the things they want to do" done, even when they hold all the cards show in plain detail exactly what their priorities are. The only place where you will see them not working in unison is in the Punch and Judy show that they put on for the suckers back home.
Yes, that is the practical political effect.
Do you really feel the Progressives are phony? All of them? No one sincere at all? If that's what you think, I can't agree. If anybody is going to give us a chance at survival, it's got to be a Progressive running in 2012 and winning, and when that Progressive wins, we, the electorate, need to promise that Progressive that we intend to hold his/her feet to the fire--no more blanket love-ins of pretty faces and charming personalities. From day one, we will make our choices known and never back away from them. Also, I expect to see people voting en masse. We have to get the vote out, support our candidate strongly, get the message across that we must win out over Republican gangsterish demands and DLC/DNC Democrat betrayals. We need to vote out the remaining Blue Dogs and replace them with more good Progressives. Let's build the Progressives up in Congress so we can be, once and for all, a force to be reckoned with. Early this morning, I signed a petition to Senator Bernie Sanders to run as a Progressive candidate for the presidency. Already, hundreds of people had signed that petition. We are working to find a good Progressive who is proud to stand up for We the People. Help us do that. Don't just snipe at Progressives as if we stand for nothing. Progressives are WE THE PEOPLE, and they will fight for their country. Get behind them, they need you, and they need to hear from each and every one of you. Get in touch online with Progressive Democrats of America and get signed up. Thanks.
The answer to your question is simple. Two reasons. McDonnell considers Mr. Obama to be a rank amateur politico whom he can use as his punching bag. Secondly, even Mr. McDonnell and his ilk have come under increasing pressure from the far right of their party to attack Obama.
Don't let the expedient be the enemy of the effective.
And there were in the same country Liebermans abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
Except to Republicans, don't give up the ship.
A capitulation in time saves nine.
When in doubt, ejaculate.
Trylon
why didn't democreepRats in congress try extending the taxcut for the middle class only and well before this last election ? only because lieberslime grumbled that he was against it ?)
it's indeed the role of the petty democreepRat in congress to be the cannon fodder here, instead of asking that obama immolates himself for them to watch on tv while they go on taking campaign donation bribes from big money.
obama's tax deal is a positive development because it is already forcing the dem.party to at least posture that it "feels" to the left of obama and this posturing will make it harder for pro-establishment demobliRats to continue selling themselves as rightwing-lite since the posturing will radicalize the discursive atmosphere even more than what it has already happened over the last three years (yes, since obama's rise ! three years ago nobody main-stream was talking about plutocrats; now even some MSM are quoting antiplutocratic figures!)
obama should expose himself only after most of the dem.party will have moved way further to the left of him at least discursively.
otherwise he would be killed immediately by rightwing assassins hired by the plutocrats, and his successor would be a by-bribe-only demobliRat for sure (ever heard of joseph biden aka "the friend of the usurer"?).
now, why doesn't the dem."left" ask for slick willie's capital-gains tax cut to be abolished as part of the deal with the republiRat leeches ?
"Well, this time around, Obama won nothing so significant as health care reform."
Wow.
Significant? I guess it depends on how one defines significant, and for whom.
That dastardly "health care" bill that Obama touts as something Democrats "have wanted for 100 years", is significant all right.
Significant in pretty much burying any chance at all for dislodging the absolutely horrid system of "health care" delivered through private insurance that is mostly dependent on the good will of your employer.
Significant in that for the first time, federal law will require a person to purchase overpriced insurance or else.
Significant in that this bill does almost nothing to address the steady rise in premiums that should be considered criminal.
Yeah, that's significant alright.
Your critical corrections are too often glossed over. The HC bill was indeed a giant leap backward for mankind, an entrenchment of corporate power and parasitism enforced by mandate. It is an evil betrayal of the people---by design, forcing them to subscribe to a fatally defective product. It is murderous and criminal in its effect.
It is important to hammer this home every time HC is touted as a benefit, coming too often from the "liberal" media. The same goes for financial "regulation" and every other Trojan horse "reform" from this administration and the Democratic Party, including most of Slick Willie's "achievements" (NAFTA, welfare, Glass-Steagall, Telecom, derivatives "modernization", etc.) This must be a powerful reminder that our greatest enemy are these false prophets in sheep's clothing who are inwardly ravening wolves. Their fruits betray them.
My jaw dropped when this dark horse quisling had the temerity and audacity to raise that issue as an argument for appeasing these vicious economic terrorists. It is a profound insult to the intelligence of his ex-base and telling evidence of his arrogant disdain for those he suckered through claculated deceit. The man grows more odious and sickening each day.
I like the aphorisms in the beginning.
What about
Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you got, the less shit you eat!
vice versa
pax
Let's keep it simple.
In this case the simplest response to the comment that "The perfect is the enemy of the good" is simply that "The bad is the enemy of the good. This so-called compromise is at best bad, very bad."