On 11/15/2010 3:35 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> Heh. Some "fox". More like the gift that keeps on giving to a Republican opposition which was given up for dead after the 2008 election. A tougher Democratic politician would have taken the latest tax cut issue and run with it. It makes political and fiscal sense. The surest indication that it was a winning issue is how eagerly and uncharacteristically the Republicans, not least tea party champion Jim DeMint, have leapt at Obama's offer to compromise.
Let me offer a couple of data points on this subject and tell me what you think.
First, the NYT had a reported piece a week ago, based on interviews with insiders, that investigated how the Dems got themselves so twisted around on an issue that seemed like such a win for them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/us/politics/09fiscal.html?_r=1&hpw
It says that the White House started thinking about the issue in late 2009. They felt confident that Pelosi could block any bill making the top rate cuts permanent. In the meantime, the tax issue was on the back burner, due to the health reform debate. But then....
> But by summer, with the recovery stalled and more of them on
> handicappers’ endangered lists, House Democrats refused to vote on the
> tax cuts before the Senate did. They feared they would endure
> Republicans’ charge that they had voted to raise taxes on some small
> businesses, only to see the legislation languish in the Senate like
> other bills had.
>
> Ms. Pelosi informed the White House of the House Democratic position.
> At a meeting before Congress recessed for August, to the surprise of
> others, Mr. Reid assured her and Mr. Obama that the Senate would vote
> in September to extend only the middle-income rates.
>
> But when Congress returned, party pollsters and consultants battled
> over the right course, each side interpreting polling data to its
> advantage.
>
> One camp believed, as Stan Greenberg and James Carville wrote in a
> Sept. 15 memorandum, that “Democrats Should Want This Tax Cut Debate.”
> They argued that it would define the election as a choice between
> Democrats for the middle class and deficit reduction, against
> Republicans for Wall Street and more debt.
>
> Another camp countered that in an already bad year, Democrats were
> especially vulnerable to the “tax and spend” label. As the pollster
> Mark Mellman summed the argument in an interview, “An election that’s
> dominated by the tax issue is a bad election for Democrats everywhere,
> anywhere and always.”
>
> By then several moderate Senate Democrats who were not up for
> re-election — Evan Bayh of Indiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Kent
> Conrad of North Dakota — had expressed opposition to letting the top
> rates expire because of the economy’s fragility. That suggested Senate
> Democrats could not muster the 60 votes to overcome a Republican
> filibuster, further unnerving Democrats struggling for re-election.
>
> Several, including Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Patty
> Murray of Washington, implored Mr. Reid not to force the debate. He
> agreed. All three won re-election.
>
> The day after the election, Mr. Obama said he was open to compromise
> with Republicans.
So there you have it. The Dems could not have overcome a filibuster due to opposition from Blue Dogs. Therefore, any debate would have dragged on - and the debate would not have been "Dems vs. Republicans on tax cuts for the rich" but rather "Dems versus Dems on taxes." In the end, *liberals* in the Senate running for reelection pleaded for and won agreement from Reid not to have the debate before the election.
Now, I know you'll say this was pure cowardice and foolishness. After all, "every poll shows" that repealing tax cuts on the rich but not the middle class is popular. But let me bring up data point number two.
This year there was a ballot initiative in Washington State to impose an income tax on the top 1% of taxpayers (+$400,000 for couples) *and* to cut property and small business taxes on everyone else. The net revenue would be dedicated for education and health spending. The initiative was very prominently championed in the media by Bill Gates Sr. It went down to defeat 65% to 35% on election day. And Washington State is surely, relatively speaking, one of the more liberal states in the country. In other words, any national poll showing that the public favors repealing tax cuts for the rich (in the abstract) surely would show residents of Washington State feeling this way even more so.
And yet, according to Politico:
> Support for the initiative started out strong, and polls remained
> close all summer, with a “yes” to the so-called millionaire’s tax
> leading 41 percent to 39 percent [NOTE: that's not exactly
> overwhelming support] as recently as Oct. 3.
>
> But as advertising on both sides began in earnest in mid-September,
> the “no” side began pulling away.
This is what I mean when I say the conservatives have escalation dominance. They have more weapons and more forces and in a confrontation they are much more likely to win.
So are you really so certain Obama and the Dems are wrong (from their narrow, politician's POV) to take the positions they're taking on the tax issue?
SA