The tax cut deal

Guess I do have time for one quick post. I have more to say about this deal Obama cut with the GOPers on tax cuts, but two quick thoughts for right now. One, in processing the information as it comes out, it seems to me that a lot of the anger from the far left is about being cut out of the process. As Ezra says, it's an OK deal, but it was struck without any outreach to the base. As was everything so far in Obama's administration.

But the presidency of Barack Obama has been more inside game than outside game. The tax cut deal is yet another example. On the face of it, it's not a bad deal. Republicans gets $130 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy, and Democrats get about $300 billion in more stimulative, more progressive breaks and unemployment benefits. That's more than anyone thought Obama likely to get from these negotiations. But it was a deal struck in a back room, without buy-in from the president's base, and then sold at a press conference were Obama lectured liberals about the compromises required to pass Social Security, Medicare, and the founding of this country, and the dangers of "sanctimony." As you might imagine, that didn't go over too well with liberals, and now we're in another of the occasional flare-ups between Obama and his base.

My first inclination was to fight it but as John Cole points out if we kill the deal, and it's possible we could do it, then what? We're down to the eleventh hour before the GOP effectively takes over the Congress. So what's Plan B? How is the left going to get the GOPers and Blue Dogs to extend UI benefits for millions of Americans who would be otherwise left with no income in the dead of winter? Much less the other stealth stimulus provisions that were added to the deal?

My second thought, which was actually my first reaction, is the Democrats could have and should have cut a much better deal than this. They should have held out for not just the UI benies, but also at least DADT and START and forced those votes first. And they could have, if they had this fight in May. But they wanted until it was too late and the bitter reality is this is the best we're going to get at this time. Killing the deal, imperfect as it is, won't gain us anything and in fact leave us with nothing just as the GOPers are about to take over with an even stronger hand.

I hate it but there it is. Thinking the strategy now is for liberals and progressives is to regroup and figure out why we aren't more effective in swaying our legislators so they can make the president do what we want.