This may actually be the first time that I read, understood, AND agreed with one of Charles' posts...

It's the best deal he could get with this congress. Some bad, some good. The estate tax is back, for one thing.

It's a compromise. It's not pretty but as one of the millions of people on unemployment, I'm happy I'm not going to be homeless...for awhile at least.

He's completely lost his base, and he never really had anything else. I wonder who our President will be in 2012.

well, better luck in 2016!

Maybe then we can get a real progressive!

Too harsh. The real fighting has not even begun.

I thought being a reactionary with a thin skin was what Sarah Palin was all about. Who knew she and Charles had so much in common.

The perfect political compromise: fewer taxes and more spending! This will help out everyone's next campaign. Do we blame the politicians for the budget-breaking party they're throwing, or the American people, who have as much foresight as a crosseyed mole?

This post seems incomplete. What would an obscure German philosopher have to say about it?

8 FTW

We have the government we deserve.

"Totally, fuck Obama."

This Mudede comment has the soul of Dan Savage. I like it.

That Mudede guy is annoying.

So long as the benefits are extended, that's the main thing right now.

I don't know. The base is going to vote for him no matter what. I mean, who else we gonna go for?

He could make a dozen, hell a hundred more compromises I don't like and I'd still vote for his pale gray ass just in hopes of seeing Injustices Thomas and/or Scalia replaced by a Kagan or a Sotomayor.

And there may be genius at work here. This totally cuts the Tax-Mad argument that spawned the Tea Party off at the knees. But they'll still try to make that argument. "Doncha know, we're just all fed up with yer massive tax increases here in the Real America." "But Governor Palin, that's simply not true."

I'm not happy with $700 Billion/year lining the pockets of these inbred entitled fucks for another two years, but even if all it means is that 13 million Americans who would have been homeless in 2011 get to keep a roof over their heads, I'm still giving him the benefit of every doubt.

If it means we can see DADT go the way of the dinosaur, I'm all for it.

Republicant President Obama for the Spineless Whimp win!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-kl…

@10 oops, sorry, you had fp.

Yeah, I think given how whiny lefties largely failed to show up in the midterms (King County an awesome exception) he's doing the best he can with the landscape he's got to deal with.

Now that the wealthy have certainty about their taxes again the job classifieds will start ballooning in 5..4..3..2..

I'm not particularly inclined to agree. Perhaps, it is because I'm one of those stubborn people who votes on issues, not for a particular person. And, I didn't have this expectation that Obama was going to fix or save everything. So, I won't be one of those "lost generation" or "lost base" people running to change political parties.

And, while I'm not 100% pleased, I still maintain that of the two options available we chose wisely as a nation.

Plus, nobody flashed their boobies for the CNN cameras during the showdown over the tax cuts. What a letdown! Impeach Obama Now!

@ 1 I completely agree.

Obama chooses "compromise" instead of fighting for principle and the working class AKA 95 percent of American’s every time. His presidency has been an utter and complete failure.

Oh please, this is how the sausage gets made.

@5, Obama IS as progressive a president as you're going to see in your lifetime. Who are you holding out for, someone like Nader? Never, NEVER going to happen.

Less taxes equals more votes according to typical DC math. It might have been spineless, but it wasn't completely a defeat - or if it was, it was a considered, self-interested, deliberate defeat.

Obama blows up and burns alive innocent civilians in Afghanistan for no reason beyond politics, and there's still hope for him. He extends tax cuts to the rich and it's all over. Interesting priorities.

#14. Well, as one member of "his base", I just don't really feel like voting anymore.

I always said he was a jive talkin' pimp azz mo' fo'... A talker not a walker. But you didn't listen to me did you? Hahah!

normally I'm happy with compromise, but in this case I was rooting for stalemate; all tax breaks expire for everyone.

No one was going to starve because of these taxes... but if the government runs out of credit the results of cuts to social security, medicaid, unemployment, and welfare will not be pretty.

The tax cuts expire in 2012. What else happens in 2012?

Hmm.... Maybe Obama looks like he's willing to compromise, maybe Obama saves some people on UI, maybe Obama gets some new estate taxes, and maybe Obama gets to re-open the conversation just before the next election.

Maybe the progressives should pick fights they can win and maybe they should save their powder until the fight actually matters.

@14 I'll vote for whoever is on the Dem ticket because the GOP is an institutionalized smear campaign against me. But if I think someone has a chance to primary Obama and I think they're electable, I'm voting for them.

Who cares -- I get MY tax cut and a cut in MY Social Security taxes (sorry, Geezers).

Self-Interest. It makes sense. A whole lot of sense.

I'd vote for a Latvian poodle if he'd cut my taxes.

Fuck Obama.

Though, there's a miniscule chance the Dems can turn this into something positive. Right here you have the perfect representation of what the Republican Party is. They say they're fiscally conservative, but if it means increasing the deficit even more with extended unemployment benefits to increase the deficit even more with tax cuts for millionaires, that's who they are. Early today the message from Republicans was they'd only be willing to extended unemployment if it was paid for, and instead they agreed to it by increasing the deficit by another ~700 billion. There is nothing fiscally conservative about them when it’s time to shut up and vote.

Am I too naive in thinking that the Dems still might know how to campaign on that effectively?

GOD DAMMIT.

Thanks for the link, @16. Sounds like a good compromise to me, so "spineless" isn't really the word I would use. This at least deviates from the Republican's tank-the-economy-so-we-can-win-in-2012 script.

All of you idealistic cry babies: there is no way he would have got unemployment benefits extended (for 13 months!) without giving something up. What should he have compromised on instead?

I'm going to hope for the best and assume he's being strategic, rather than spineless. That said, I think it's essential for his base to let their displeasure be known, and continue to hold his feet to the fire. It's unfortunate that the US term is 4 years rather than 6, as too much time is wasted looking toward the next election, rather than focusing on getting things done.

The only way Obama could have won this fight would be play into Republican hands and threatened to let all the Bush tax cuts expire. The Republicans would have let that happen and then spent two years telling America how Obama had raised taxes during a recession and broken his campaign promise not to raise taxes on people with incomes less than $250,000.

THAT is what the last gasp of the Obama administration would look like. This compromise, on the other hand, will let Obama fashion a narrative that the first act of a fiscally responsible Republican Congress is actually a fiscally irresponsible blunder which clearly benefits the rich.

My boss, who was a delegate at the 2008 Republican Convention, said in the middle of the office today that he was disgusted by the way the Republicans are pandering to the rich. So it shouldn't be too hard to spin this one our way.

So everybody chill out. Obama will win the 2012 election by a comfortable margin if he plays this right.

I think it's more than possible that Obama's "base" may have decided by 2012, if this is how he's going to be handling the opposition for the next two years, that perhaps they'll vote for other Democrats on their tickets but not bother checking the box for Obama. The man promised action and he promised advocacy; he's provided neither. He's either been completely silent when the power of the White House could have done some good, or he's made compromises in the face of threatened filibusters without waiting to see whether the thugs on the Republican side of the chamber are actually willing to read telephone books until they collapse in exhaustion.

Now that he's agreed to extend the tax cuts for two years (which makes them due to expire just after the 2012 elections) it's a given that the Republican president we will most likely get in 2012's election will extend the cuts permanently. So I want to thank our far-seeing President for collaborating with the Republicans in sending the economy of this country swirling down the drain, along with any higher principles he might have had before he ran for office.

@33:

Bingo. And this is what Democrats should be hammering the GOP with starting tomorrow. If it means saving the perks for their millionaire and mult-millionaire/billionaire masters, then clearly they have no hesitation about abandoning even the slightest pretense regarding "fiscal responsibility". It's hypocrisy at it's most mendacious, and we should be shouting it from the rooftops from now until Election Day 2012.

At least the Dems (including Obama) are leveraging some relief for the lower and middle-classes (if that term even has any relevance anymore) and making what is at least a palatable lemonade out of the lemons they've been handed in the post-election cycle. But no one should think for a second the GOP side has had any consideration for those people whatsoever, including Tea-Partiers, who have just been handed a concrete example of how important Republicans hold what we've been told is one their primary principles, namely reducing the federal deficit.

Charles: This is how the world works. Wake up and smell the coffee.

The nerve!!!

13 months of extended unemployment benefits. That's going to make a big difference for a lot of families. It's not a good deal, but whatevs.

Really he hasn't come close to Clinton's butt licking of the right (end welfare as we know it, prayer in schools). And those of you looking forward to electing that 'true progressive' - do you ever put on your spacesuit and venture outside of your northwest bubbleopolis?

Unfortunately, I believe like a few others that this is the best sausage the President could have gotten given the congress that he has to work with. At the very least, the UI extension potentially keeps millions from food banks and homelessness.

If we don't like the sausage being made, the best thing we can do is help get progressives elected to congress all over the country to use as leverage to make the sausage we want in legislation and public policy.

I understand why people just stop voting. It doesn't take very many elections to completely kill off any hope-y-ness that one might tend to feel.

*this is the best sausage our spineless president could have made. We'll never know what an eloquent fire breathing populist could have done with readily accompanying public support because we'll never see it from this guy.

Yes, he's a wimp, but the problem is that he was a wimp a year ago. Un-wimp-like behavior then could have prevented this compromise now.

...Social Security and Medicare are next people in order to "cut the deficit." And when Obama makes the "unavoidable compromise" to raise the age and cut the benefits, the Republicans will say in the next election, "See what those Democrats did to you elderly and near retirement people."

Puppets on a string.... Sheesh. Are there any real Democrats left?

Seriously, in his tax-cave press statement Obama called opposition to tax breaks for billionaires a "symbolic battle", ie meaningless and valueless. What a prick.

@14 - Exactly. We may be dissatisfied with Obama, but what are Democrats going to do, vote for Palin? Not vote? We will vote for him no matter what he does in the next 2 years.

I thought he would be the world's shittiest president in 2008 and I still think he's an entirely unqualified Svengali egomaniac, but I voted for him anyway, and I'll do it again in 2012. Thanks to my fellow Democrats, we're stuck with this dipshit for hopefully 6 more years.

Maybe in 2016 Americans can vote for someone based on something other than "he'd be cool to have a beer with" or "I'd like to have him over for BBQ." Christ.

@14 Green Party candidate. If the far-left voted for Nadar over Gore, and Obama continues like this, people are going to look to a third party again.

Obama could have been as progressive as Eugene V. Debs, but without the progressive numbers in congress, he can't do a damn thing to satisfy the progressive agendas. Elect real progressive democrats to congress all over the country and we won't witness potential future compromise on the benefits of social security and medicare.

oligarchy |ˈäliˌgärkē; ˈōli-|
noun ( pl. -chies)
a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution : the ruling oligarchy of military men around the president.
• a state governed by such a group : the English aristocratic oligarchy of the 19th century.
• government by such a group.

WE DID NOT ELECT OBAMA TO COMPROMISE.

What @2, 3, 6, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, 30, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42 and 43 said.

Um, maybe this is actually what America wants, and voted for...?

Maybe if the progressive side of the argument was, you know, more appealing and its advocates more persuasive, the United States populace at large wouldn't be voting in conservatives...

It's sort of hilarious that one wing of politics is apoplectic over what a dangerously radical socialist we have in the White House while the other wing rends its garments over the administration being in the tank for Big Business.

@54: Of course we did. Compromise is a foundation of politics, and often we have to compromise our own political dispositions in order to get the some of what we want - or we get none. There's still a wealth of issues that you can still be proud about for Obama. I suggest you count them.

So, congress is obviously going to vote to allow the debt ceiling to rise.

Because if they don't, well, what the fuck are they going to cut to keep it level?

And when they DO vote to raise the debt ceiling, which is completely inevitable now that tax cuts for billionaires are going to be extended, when they do raise it, are the tea-baggers going to raise hell with all the repubs they just got elected into office on the promise of reducing the debt, cutting the deficit, and shrinking government?

*crickets chirping*

He was correct when he said the agreement has something in it that everyone will hate. For once I agree with him. I have plenty that I disagreed with in this agreement. Now we can wait 2 years for this discussion to continue.

Obama still misses two fundamantal points: (1) people earn their money, and it is thier money, not the governments and (2) that government shall serve teh people not rule them.

(54) Likewise, we didn't vote out the Dems to have the 2010 class compromise either.

For the love of could, could we blame Ben Nelson first? If there's a democrat we should be angry at, it's the democrat voting with Republicans most of the time. Remember when people had the decency to call Joe Lieberman a traitor before getting mad at the people on their side?

Get mad about conservative democrats, not the guy salvaging the wreck they helped make.

Bottom line, this is a tactical retreat. In two years, If the economy gets worse the Republicans will share in the blame and if it gets better Obama will get the credit while the GOP whines on Fox News about how their tax breaks actually saved the world, but it won’t matter because Americans will be happy about having jobs again. And let’s be honest…more people watch Sponge Bob and Hannah Montana than any program on Fox News…just saying.

All I can figure is he's going to let the Republicans fuck everything up, and in two years say "See, they fucked everything up. I Told You So."

Problem is in the meantime we're all fucked.

I'm kinda encouraged that he spent so much political capital to extend unemployment benefits. It's a defining moment alright- the President sides with the unemployed, while the GOP sides with the rich. Unfortunately for all of us, the unemployed are going to vote in droves for whoever promises to prevent homosexuals from teaching evolution in the Army.

I put a bunch of this on our Congress as well. They have been like dogs with their tail between their legs anytime the Right mentioned Filibuster. Anytime anything was not 100% right, the declare Filibuster (like some mythical creature will come from the sky) and everyone scatters. Call them on that shit, make them read the bill for days straight, make the bills longer and keep making them do it until they quit being a bunch of thugs and misanthropes.

@62- "Unfortunately for all of us, the unemployed are going to vote in droves for whoever promises to prevent homosexuals from teaching evolution in the Army."
Well put!

And off in the distance, we hear Hillary cackling "I told you so"....

Who cares? We'll just have Bernankio print another $900 billion out of thin air to cover it. Buy gold and gas, because commodities will be on a moonshot. This policy is bad for anyone with first access to money, namely the middle and lower-class, and great for people with risk assets. Small business will suffer, as margins are squeezed, (as will job creation), and prices people pay for food, gas and energy will go up.

Amen, brother. Keep up the good fight.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.

Got Wars?

So glad Charles Mudede is not president. Who the hell do you think you are? You might as well be a tea-bagger.

all voting for democrats at the federal level does is slow the pace of the republican agenda (sometimes imperceptibly). they have the same basic set of goals. increase the power & the influence of the rich at the expense of everyone else. i'm tired of wasting my progressive vote on what evidence incontrovertably demonstrates is a right wing party. i'm going third party from now on for federal offices. voting for democrats does not move the country to the left. it moves the country to the right more slowly. let the democrats lose (what's the difference if they win anyway?), but lose because of pressure on their left.

As much as the left hates it, this is a center right nation. We don't want European socialism with its' denial of basic indididual economic rights. We don't want Marxism. We just don't believe the unrealistic pie in the sky notions the left holds. England has lost this distinction, but America is a nation of shopkeepers with the same hard nosed sensibilities.

Elections show this consistently. After FDR was Eisenhower to restore the balance. After LBJ Reagan came in to re-establish the principles the nation wanted. Sorry, guys. The only folks that buy your beliefs are the urban cores and the Berkeley grads. Even with a media relentlessly biased to the left this is true. Even with academia insistently attempting to brainwash universtity students they just aren't biting on your pet theories.

I've always been curious. In your narratives Europe (especially Gerrmany for some reason) does everything better. In your view Capitalism is a bad thing. Why in the world don't you emigrate to someplace your notions have currency? You'd be happier it seems to me. Heck, Europe is nice if you don't have to rely on their hospitals with their long waits for any kind of care. The constant strikes mean your train or postal office or local grocer might not be open. But hey, who needs to eat, pick up their mail or go to work or get the kids to school. Not trying to be rude, but if we do everything wrong, why not move where they do it right in your estimation?

I don't like the compromise, but in terms of serving the will of the majority of people in this country and keeping the legislature moving along to other issues, I think it's a compromise that works. Yeah, I'd be fine, almost happy, if the tax breaks simply expired for everyone. The poorest amongst us would still be mostly exempt. Unfortunately, the unemployed would be in a tougher spot, too, and the republicans would be able to keep their demonic fires well stoked.

So I don't like it but I also think it's a well thought out move and one I can't completely disagree with.

I am so angry I feel like I'm going to have a mother fucking seizure. I swear, it was only MINUTES ago that our glorious politicians were frothing at the mouth over our deficit. "We must lower our deficit!" they cried, "If we don't, our country is going to collapse!" So what do they do? Extend UNPAID tax breaks for the richest 2% AND extend UNPAID unemployment benefits. While I am 100% behind extending unemployment, what our wondrous leaders cannot seem to understand is that if you want something that requires money, YOU MUST PAY FOR IT. If we want things like unemployment, schools, fire departments, police departments, etc etc etc, then PAY. FOR. THEM. That means *GASP* TAXES! If you demand these services while refusing to pay for them (I'm looking at YOU Republicans; when working in social services, it pained me that the OVERWHELMING majority of people on social programs like WELFARE--now called TANF-- were REPUBLICANS who simultaneously opposed having to pay taxes to support social programs) then you have no right to whine about the deficit.

As for our democratic leaders, if you consistently cave and let absurdities like this happen, you don't get to gasp in horror when you don't like the results. You have the motherfucking majority. If Republicans have power, it's because you gave it to them on a silver be damned platter. You should have been able to win this and saved our country hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit. You didn't, and MY generation is going to end up paying it off when you're happily retired. We all know that when you have "no choice" but to "compromise" and raise the age of social security and reduce benefits, you'll be damned sure that these changes will be far enough in the future that YOUR generation doesn't have to deal with it.

I put the comment below on another thread, but I feel it needs to be repeated:

While I am not super stoked over this, this whole Obama presidency has felt like every fucking liberal being an arm-chair quarterback. We have absolutely no idea how hard it is to get shit done in DC. And further, this political climate is fucking insane. I love how all of you fucking lament on EVERY GODDAMN THING OBAMA *DOESN'T* DO. He has done some great things, and it's like every single person just glosses over that, like "whatever, I could do that in my sleep".

I am not saying Obama is perfect, but this is why we lose elections. The right may be some crazy fucking assholes, but we are like petulant children who pout/whine/scream when shit doesn't go EXACTLY HOW WE WANT. Goddamnit, between the tea party, and democrats being a bunch of goddamn drama queens...this country has no hope. I have lost all hope.

We have to burn the village to the ground in order to save it.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Is this the twilight Zone?!

I coulda' swore Mudede just wrote a post that actually made sense...

@74: I disagree. Most of what I've been reading has been suggesting alternatives, like "Let the fuckers stand there and talk for twelve hours with nothing but water and no bathroom breaks, and then pass the bill we want when they collapse from exhaustion," or "Suspend enforcement of DADT, right fucking now, because that's REALLY EASY and doesn't require any sort of battle," or "Don't challenge the Federal court decisions that rule DADT and DOMA unconstitutional," or "Stop trying to deal and just let the tax cuts expire," or "Just fucking leave Iraq and Afghanistan right now and let them burn/erupt into civil war, because we can't afford to stay there any more, and we're not going to win the hearts and minds of the people through continuing military occupation," etc. This has nothing to do with getting my way entirely (I haven't heard ANY politicians suggesting 100% tax rates on "income" - extended to include income in any and all forms - over $500,000, with much higher tax rates on the other brackets, or making for-profit insurance illegal, or eliminating immigration control entirely, for example), it has to do with trading things I'm REALLY against (e.g. tax cuts in the middle of a recession with a national debt that is increasing in size at an exponential rate because we can't even afford the interest payments any more) for things that I am at best ambivalent about. I'm used to not getting anything I REALLY want, being a radical; I'm not used to a Democrat majority capitulating on anything and everything Left-of-Center. It's not hard to get these things done so much as it's shitty work. Having to wait out 36 hours of filibusterer sucks, but it's not difficult: most people could do it if pressed. Suspending DADT would piss off the Republican machine, but it's REALLY easy to do (and concern over combat-readiness would be irrelevant if we shut our two wars down, which would also be really simple, though perhaps not as easy). Done right, being a Senator or House Rep. or President is a really shitty job, not a cushy one, but that's why we pay our representatives so much. They need (and needed for the past two years) to step up and do their shitty jobs.

Charles, you sound like Henny Penny: "The sky is falling down!"

Calm the fuck down.