the problem with that approach is Americans are dumb. I can't explain it, but regardless of the facts they take the republican's version of the story as gospel on every issue; so relying on them to understand who is really to blame is suicide.

The republicans will no doubt blame the Dems if the tax cuts expire, & then we'll be in really deep shit.

Dear pigs,

Fly.

Sincerely,
A Unicorn

@1, it's about storytelling. The Republicans do it very carefully and pretty consistently. The likes of us, we just throw polysyllables at the hoi polloi, then huff when they don't do as we suggest.

Good luck with that. They're too busy wringing their hands and crying in their hankies.

Yes, the Republicans are already calling this "the Obama Tax Hike." And people are believing it, too.

Can we re-elect Clinton, please? Pleeeeeeaase???

@5 Indeed, because Sarah Palin is telling them to. =/

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/…

Given the hole Obama has dug for himself, the Dems need to go further and take a page from G W Bush - propose a big new tax cut for early 2012 and write a $600 check to everyone making $200K a year or less. We're going to need all the votes we can buy.

@6,
To hell with Clinton, we should find some way to re-animate the corpses of FDR and LBJ and merge them together.

FLDBRJ. That would be a democrat president who gets shit done.

Hey, I'm really for that! And not just as some political tactic, but as good policy. The tax cuts for the rich that the Rs want may cost $0.7T, but the tax cuts for the middle class that the Ds want cost $3.3T!

As a political tactic, though, it would be dumb. As multiple previous commenters have already pointed out, that possibility has already been successfully branded as an EvilObamaTaxHike.

It's not a tax hike, it's a return to normalcy and responsibility. Paying your taxes is a patriotic duty. Not waving a made in China American flag. And what about those unemployment benefits that are expiring? Time for some backbone, Democrats. Fuck those Republicans, and expose them for who they are.

The Democratic party is dead to me.

It would require them to look populist, which would in turn hurt their important fundraising efforts, so it won't happen.

Not necessary. Introduce a bill in the Senate that extends the middle class tax cuts only. Make the mother fuckers ACTUALLY fillibuster it, not just threaten to do so. And publicize the fuck out of it.

It's waaaaaaaay too sensible an approach *sigh*

Jeebus, this shit just pisses me off to no end. I occasionally swear (never in print), but these asshole R's and the spineless D's are just . . . . goddammit, I've been cussing a blue streak the past 15 months.

Everyone's been brought out by the corporates.

@17
In a winner take all election, your 3rd party vote is the equivalent of not voting at all. 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. parties only work with proportional representation (see the German, Israel, etc. parliaments).

Speaking of Farm Subsidies and Ethanol, why are those still around if we're cutting the Deficit?

And if we do believe in Free Trade, time to end the Cane Sugar and Cane Ethanol embargoes.

@9 I needs me some Trust Busting of the Too Big To Fail Banks ...

@19 Which is a great reason to push for proportional representation along with supporting an actual noncorporate controlled party. In this 2 party system voting for either party is already the equivalent of not voting at all. But I'm all for hijacking the Democratic Party from the inside too, let's run some actual progressives in the primaries on the off chance they win before we decide to vote 3rd party in the general election. But right now voting for a Dem doesn't change anything 99 times out of 100, voting 3rd party at least helps build their credibility, furthering one of the rarest things in politics, a long term strategy.

@9 to hell with you Clinton got a lot done.

there really isn't any reason to expect the democrats to do anything to support progressive reform on any issue. they are not a progressive party. they are a conservative party funded by wall street & corporate america. they aren't a lunatic far right party like the republicans, but they are a center-right to right party, so we should all expect them to pursue center-right to right policies, which is exactly what they do.

for those who feel that voting for a 3rd party is throwing your vote away, what is voting for the democrats? if you are a progressive, you are throwing your vote away when you vote for democrats. so what's the difference? at least voting for a 3rd party will put pressure on the democrats from the left.

Amen Dan. Keep telling em.

You proceed from the assumption that they don't WANT to extend the tax cuts. You might want to rethink that bit.

I've been saying this from the start. We cant discount our way out of this mess.

Maybe the Democrats should compromise and only extend the upper class tax cuts. We need a bipartisan solution.

Though I, and many of your readers will agree, Dan, to be fair, it was not the GOP's original intent that the cuts expire. They were forced to pass the bill under "reconciliation" (also used to pass the recent health care reform) due to resistance of democrats. Reconciliation requires that no budget-affecting measures last longer than 10 years.

I am in favor of every tax cut proposed.

Every Republican should be as well.

I have made this clear.

I good compromise would be to raise the cut-off to $1 million. Then the Republicans (who would still violently oppose it) could truly be cast in the role of protecting millionaires, and it would be much harder for them to spin it as a tax hike on small businesses and families. Heck, $500K would probably do it.

I wonder how much of that $700 billion cost of extending the upper-income Bush tax cuts is accounted for by those earning more than $1 million. Anyone?

What gets me, every fucking time, is that the percentage of households earning $260K or more? 1.5%. THAT'S IT!

With all the caterwauling you hear, you'd think that 75% of this country hit the $260K mark.

Not only that, the cuts are still in effect for everyone's first $260K. Income *after* that falls under the tax hike. So, make $270K, and the first $260 is still protected under the tax cut; the expired/restored tax rate only applies to the $10K over $260K.

But the Dems seem unable to communicate this.

One percent of the people in this country control fifty percent of its wealth.

Repeat: 1% of the people in the U.S. control 50% of the wealth in this country.
This same 1% received 24% of pre-tax income in 2007, but received only 9% in 1976. From 2002 to 2007, their income increased 10% per year.

These super-rich jerkoffs are definitely in need of more tax breaks financed by the rest of us, right?

My question is how long are this nation's gullible, dipshit voters going to continue to bury their fucking heads in the sand, allowing asshole oligarchs and plutocrats to rub their noses in the fact that they are utterly, completely powerless?

Elections used to offer something of a remedy for plutocracy and oligarchy -- not any more. Elections in this country were turned into Silent Auctions when the U.S. supreme court declared that corporations are people, and are entitled to the same free-speech protections as human beings -- which is a truckload of fucking bullshit if there ever was one. People are people, not companies.

If you're a right winger determined to flame me, don't clutter up valuable real estate with your drooling and horseshit. With a modicum of research you can find me, but fair warning: be sure to read the Privacy Agreement -- it means what it says!

@19: Incorrect. An election is extremely unlikely to be decided by one vote, so your vote plays no role in determining who wins. It is, however, capable of sending a message. It's not wasted by voting for a third party.

@14:

Absolutely, I really don't understand why the democrats cower behind a filibuster THREAT. This is the PERFECT bill to call the GOP bluff. They want to filibuster a middle-class tax cut? Fine! MAKE THEM STAND UP FOR A MONTH if they fucking want to. Let the bill die even and let all the tax cuts expire.

The GOP hasn't ever been forced to stand up and go on the record and filibuster fucking anything.

Filibusters are politically COSTLY maneuvers. A filibuster THREAT doesn't cost anything. MAKE. THEM. PAY.

They want to fight and filibuster and let all the tax cuts expire by holding American workers hostage to the effete? Fine. We can take all that tax revenue and plug some of the deficit and the debt hole. And build some fucking railroads in this country to maybe improve our train service back to the kind of reliability and speed we had during the civil war when trains were powered by A GUY SHOVELING WOOD AND COAL INTO A FIREBOX.

Come on Democrats! You can do it! Can bring our country forward into the 1880s??? PLEASE???

kthx

@39: Goddamn econ people. The chance of the message sent by your vote actually being LISTENED TO is roughly the same as the chance of it deciding the election.

@39&40: what is it with America's obsession with "sending messages?"

Do other countries do this? They just write political memos to each other all the time?

Did Lincoln sit around thinking about what messages he was sending to the Confederacy?

Are you voting on one of those audio-books that makes noises of farm animals or something? Who is LISTENING to your vote?

1% control 50% of the wealth? How horrible!

To rectify this appalling injustice try this-

Start a business. Borrow against your house and retirement savings and any other source of money you own. Find investors to help raise the start up capital. For 5 years or so, on average, you'll watch the business bleed money. Your employees will drive nicer cars and live in nicer homes. Kids soccer games and dates with your spouse will be rare. You'll work 80 or more hours a week putting everything you have into the success of your business. New car? Nope. That money needs to go to a new copier or expanded office space or to new tools. New house? Don't think so. That money is needed to make payroll, or pay for the accountant or attorney or any one of a hundred pressing needs your business has.

And at the end you're filthy rich, right? More likely you're one of the vast majority of small businesses that fail, taking your savings and 5 or 10 years of our life with it. Maybe the idea was great, but someone else had the same idea with better marketing or better packaging. Maybe the economy collapsed just as you were beginning to turn a profit. Maybe it just wasn't that great an idea to begin with.

But maybe you made it work. So your fellow citizens are congratulatory on your success, right? No, quite the contrary. You did it purely by luck, or because your parents were wealthy, or because- well because anything that excuses the other persons lack of initiative. You owe more to the common tax burden than they, and you are questionable morally and ethically (at least in their view.) After all you exploit your workers by asking that they actually work the hours they want paid for! You ruin the environment by driving a big SUV, or owning a vacation cottage or flying to Europe once a year! Evil money making bastard!

Yes, wealth is concentrated in a few hands. Those would be the hands that earned it and risked everything they had to get it.

@43, Haha, no, we don't think it's the small businesses that risk everything and treat their employees like human beings that are the problem. It's the big corporations with the resources and capital of many hundreds or thousands of small businesses that do not risk anything significant when they take the enormous risks of the small business and that do not treat their employees like human beings.

@43 Or maybe you've always wanted to start your own business, but you never have more than $10 a week left over after bills and food -- if you haven't already been broke for three days by the time the next paycheck comes. Maybe you never had the money to go to college to take business classes. Maybe you don't, and never will, have a house or retirement savings to borrow against. Maybe the people who do have the money went to college for six years, during which time they were funded by their parents, got a decent job in the financial sector right out of school, were bright enough (which is not, by the way, earth-shatteringly bright) to make their way up the ladder, and mostly make their enormous wealth by buying and selling imaginary things with other people's money, if not by outright screwing said other people over until the market catches up with you, and then walking away smelling like a rose while they're all utterly ruined.

The people who control that 50% of the wealth, by and large, got there because they started out ahead. This is not, despite what your teachers told you, a land of equal opportunity for all, and many, if not most, people never even get a shot at the American Dream.

The problem is Obama thinks he is smarter than everyone. The truth is him and his administration couldn't pour sand out of a boot if the directions were written on the bottom of it.

Voting for a third party instead of a Dem doesn't send a message; it simply elects a Republican. If you really care that much about sending a message, then go ahead. But first, think about whether things might just be a little WORSE now if McCain/Palin had won in 2008.

I completely agree with the frustration of many commenters with the Dems. But the answer is NOT to vote for a 3rd party, or even worse to not vote at all. The answer (or at least part of the answer) is to run primary opponents against those Dems who refuse to stand up for the public interest.

Look at how Arlen Specter's votes changed when he suddenly found himself in a primary race. Nate Silver at 538.com posted an analysis about 6 months ago that showed clearly the impact that a primary challenge had. We've got to make these Dems accountable to us, not big money donors.

The reason the Democrats have to compromise on the tax cuts now is that if they don't compromise now, in January when the Republicans control the house, they will put forth legislation that extends the tax cuts for everyone, and if the Democrats vote against that, it won't matter that the Republicans voted no first, it'll be the Democrats who voted no to tax cuts last.

And if they don't compromise now, none of the things they want to get done now will get done with Republicans controlling the House.

That said, there's nothing wrong with letting all the tax cuts expire. One consequence of the Bush tax cuts mainly benefiting the rich is that they mainly benefit the rich - they make almost no difference on the taxes of most Americans.

@49: The problem with that is that you'll then get primary winners who are too extreme to win the election, which is what happened when Specter lost his primary challenge. The Republicans would have controlled the Senate if they hadn't tried the primary challenge strategy.

Sad to say, it appears standing for the public interest doesn't win elections.