On Dec 13, 2010, at 2:20 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> I don't, of course, KNOW. But it seems a simpler hypothesis than complex
> analyses of his inner thoughts. Wojtek mentioned a simple way in which he
> could have acted to let them expire. Are there any grounds for assuming that
> he and/or his staff were too simple-minded or two frightened (of what?) to
> follow that simple path. Instead he went through a complex procedure that
> seems to have guaranteed their extension.
>
> No complex reasoning, it seems to me, is needed to conclude that he got what
> he wanted.
>
> For two years Marxists, left-liberals, and plain-vanilla liberals have
> indulged in complex reasonings to demonstrate that appearances to the
> contrary Obama was ignoring all sorts of ways to accomplish what they
> posited he must "really" have wanted. How is it that his critics are so much
> more politically sophisticated than Obama and his staff are.
I agree with the last, but on the first, it's quite possible Obama really wanted the upper bracket cuts to go and keep those for the rest - for both reasons of politics and economic stimulus. But the only way he could get that was by giving the GOP what it wanted on the upper brackets. I don't know which it is, but my explanation is hardly impossible.
Doug