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President Obama and Speaker John Boehner
During this fiscal cliff fight, the Obama team has only \drawn two lines in the sand. The first was on raising the tax rate for people making over $250,000 a year. The other was refusing to allow raising the debt ceiling to be used for political gain. On both of these demands Obama has already folded like a tissue in a rainstorm.
A compromise on the tax rate is not that surprising. While the Obama team was firm on this point it always seemed more like a negotiation ploy than a real line in the sand.
The fold on the debt ceiling, though, has basically destroyed any negotiating creditability Obama might had left with Congressional Republicans. President Obama repeatedly said he was not going to “play that game.” His team said they see the debt ceiling issue has have historic significant. The White House claimed they had a duty to the future to break this dangerous habit. The President used the strongest possible language to say he would not hold on this issue, yet two weeks later he completely folds.
This is just the latest in a long pattern of behavior by Obama. Obama always seems to blink first. By this point it would frankly be idiotic for any Congressional Republicans to believe Obama will hold firm during a negotiation.
Ironically, Obama inability to stand firm on any demand has probably made it more difficult for him to get the grand deal he desperately wants. Given how quickly and often Obama folds it must be very difficult for John Boehner to sell any compromise to his caucus, since it is almost a sure bet that if Republicans remain intransigent Obama will make farther concessions
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Unless they and he have the same employers, and today’s instruction to both of them was identical, despite whatever posturing either side is permitted to the contrary.
must read!!!
“And sure enough, as Dean Baker points out, a gang of incredibly wealthy CEOs are planning to gut entitlements regardless of which candidate wins in 2012. It’s not just CEOs, of course, it’s also the usual gang of corrupt Democratic establishment folk”
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10692-obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-social-security-medicare-and-or-medicaid
what kind of man is Obama? read and find out
great article
Perris gave it to us
need to share this with everyone!
And this is news , how?????????
I didn’t see this afternoon’s press conference, but for whatever it’s worth, TPM is reporting that Obama said, “I will not negotiate around the debt ceiling. We’re not going to play the same game that we saw happen in 2011, which was hugely destructive.”
Like I said … For whatever it’s worth.
Glad to see they mentioned Carter and Clinton in there. The problem is bigger than Obama.
He’s a reagan republican nothing we can say or do can change that.
“Repubs count on Obama folding”. Give me a break. Obama works for the Republicans. He is a Republican. He speaks the hippie dippie language of liberalism and then gives the Repubs everything they want. EVERY TIME!! He is one of them. How stupid can people be?? Pretty damn stupid is what Obama thinks obviously. Good Cop Bad Cop HEEELLLLLOOOO. Remember the health scam he used to get elected.
what are you talking about?
obama is clearly a weak man.
he has no intention of ever fighting for anything.
that said…..people are really being silly if they dont understand that he is not being pushed around or being weak with the republicans because he is the one controlling the terms.
he is the one getting exactly what he wants.
he has never fooled the people that know who he is only the people that think they do.
My thought also and I thought Jane covered this already. He’s not folding people, this what said he would do when he was running the first time. Please remember ronni-ray-gunn is his hero not much to say after that is there?
Correct, thank you.
Jon, a correction, if you please. It is not an ‘inability’ to stand firm. It is an unwillingness to stand firm. More like nutless, gutless, and duplicitous.
Solution to global warming from the PTB….reduce the surplus population with a multi faceted plan based on the premise that peasants in the middle ages didn’t live too long past their productive life in the fields.
Ya’ know what they say….sometimes the simplest solutions is the best.
But, let’s not forget “the mines”. The mines do wonders for life expectancy (reduction).
The gun issue has taken some of the attention away from what they are about to do to SS and Medicare. The people in Congress can’t do more than one thing at a time.
How lucky we are that Obama won. Can you imagine if Romney and the evil Republicans had gotten in? Why, they would have tried to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, yes they would have!
Well, we should be appreciativeof just how damn lucky we are.
Wait a gol’ dang minute pardner.
Why is the heck Obama would put S. Security on the table is nuts. The Deems can’t trust this guy. He folds faster than Superman on laundry day.
Can someone please remind me why my vote for Jill Stein was either: a) stupid, b) childish, c) a waste, d) pathetic, or e) all of the above?
Except for NCG, only serious replies wanted. NCG can say what he wants!
Was just hoping to pull the wool over your eyes while you weren’t paying attention…
Firepups sure are hard to fool :)
Obama is a Republican mole.
Prediction: the more flagrantly Obama and Democratic Party betrays us, the more we’re going to hear from the party’s defenders that “we have a two-party in this country, so suck it up and keep voting for us.”
For the umpteenth time, it’s not “folding” if that’s what you wanted to do in the first place.
It is the height of lunacy to imply that Obama is a man whose heart is full of good intentions and love, yet Republicans have somehow turned this otherwise good-hearted man into a spineless jellyfish. Anyone who can possibly think that at this late date is not only wrong but has lost his/her grip on reality.
Why the hell are the phony liberals still trying to claim that Obama is “folding”. There is abundant evidence that Obama’s number one goal from the beginning was to gut social security and medicare. The only people who still believe this garbage are the *willfully* ignorant and deluded. As in, you are deliberately choosing to keep your head in the sand about the fact that Obama is going to serve the Wall Street plutocrats even better than Romney would have. And yet many of you still voted for him. Suckers. The plutocrats played you like a violin and you were too ignorant and deluded to even know it.
I wasn’t a big fan of Jill Stein or the Green Party. That said, I refused to accede to the finger-wagging from the Democratic Party’s defenders, and saw voting for Stein as the clearest way to tell the Democrats that I do, in fact, have “someplace else to go” to their party.
The conclusion of this post may be right. President Obama could be his own worst enemy when it comes to achieving the so-called “Grand Bargain.” Ironically, Speaker Boehner is saving progressives (at least in the short run) by saying NO to the Democratic Party, which is tripping all over itself attempting to betray us on taxes and Social Security.
I would like to see the Green Party grow and get stronger. Jill Stein managed to elaborate many policies and issues that were closer to my way of thinking than anyone else. As long as citizens continue to buy into the purported “there’s ONLY two party” duopoly, this kind of b.s. will continue ad infinitum.
Simply saying: well the Green Party is bogus, or the Green Party is bought off by Republicans, or similar crap just buys into the same old, same old, as we witness here.
Why is the terminology “folding” being used in re to Obama? Obama clearly *stated* many times that he *intends* to cut Soc Sec & Medicare. Really there’s no “mystery” here, NOR are the alleged mean-bully Republicans “obstucting” or “forcing him” or whatever other fairy tale nonsense people wish to tell themselves. Belive me, I’ve heard it all from my various so-called “lefty” pals, whether here in the USA or from other countries.
It is so patently bogus.
I had some schadenfreude witnessing RMoney’s concession speech just cuz I couldn’t stand that phoney douchebag liar, but it was short-lived, as I knew our collective middle/working class goose was cooked having Obomba back in office. ptoui!
I listened to the press conference and it was all about him. The great conciliator. I’ve gone more than half way. The Republicans won’t agree with me because they don’t like me. He wants a bargain for the sake of getting a bargain.
Conspicuously absent was invoking any actual principles or explanation of why achieving deficit reduction was necessary, why it shouldn’t be accomplished by increasing revenue, and why he should be comprominsing with the Republicans and dropping his demands for every non-specific Republican offer. I think he’s already picking out his office in the Pete Peterson building.
You never begin a negotiation with your bottom line offer. Obama isn’t negotiating with Republicans. Obama is negotiating for Republicans. Against us.
the greatest of the great Obamabots, Tbogg needs to read this blog.
Which is why I voted for Nader in ’08 and Rocky Anderson this year. But my feeling is that people who take a principled stand against the Dems’ “Take us or leave it” attitude do not constitute a sufficiently large bloc to get the Dems to adjust their behavior.
I’m puzzled why everyone wants all taxes to go up, extended unemployment to end, the AMT of 1993 apply to 2012 taxes, …
After all, no negotiating by Obama ends that way.
After Jan 1, Republicans will have no reason extend unemployment or reduce the payroll tax.
Republicans in Congress will get to please Grover Norquist and cut taxes, preserving their two decade record of never hiking taxes.
Never hiking taxes to create jobs fixing highways.
Never hiking taxes to improve Social Security benefits.
Never hiking taxes to pay for wars they start.
Never hiking taxes to pay debts but instead doing everything to cut welfare.
Boy, you love making Republicans succeed and thus keep on winning elections as the victims of liberals and Obama who are just so radical leftist and dictatorial.
We don’t — just on the wealthy who have been shirking for the last 12 years.
You talkin’ to us? You must be new here. Did a charter plane filled with trolls just touch down at the airport?
Mr. Walker’s fundamental point is off base. Obama does not fold or cave nor is he spineless. He is doing exactly as he wishes nad plans and doing precisely the bidding of is masters who placed him in the Oval office.
Both parties represent little more than the will of giant oil, banking, media and defense corporations. The only way they differ is in marketing strategies, target populations, rhetorical style, & external fluff.
Together, the 2 parties form a governing structure that responds only to the needs of American capitalism. If you go to the Dem Party “pooh-bahs” and say, “I have some nice ideas for peace, housing, environment, and education,” they’ll laugh in your face. If you go and say, “I have a $10 million donation for you from Exxon-Mobil, if you just relax a wee little regulation about mileage standards,” they will say, “Please come into my office. I believe we can do business.”
The point is that both US parties are big-business parties, responsive ONLY to the needs & desires of corporations. The personnel of both parties are tightly linked to lobbyists. Both parties are stuffed to the gills with consultants, fund-raisers, careerist apparatchiks, connections in the MSM, & so on. All together, this forms an institutional structure that is completely unresponsive to the needs and aspirations of ordinary people.
When you try to sell the feel-good idea of “Let’s take over the Dem Party,” you’re in effect proposing a project that ignores the true nature of the Dem Party. This is too big a thing to overlook. The far right was able to take over the Republican Party because that kind of alliance was always very much in the nature of the Republican Party anyway. It was compatible with, not contradictory to, the big-business nature of the Republican party. Forming an alliance with fascists, racists & religious zealots ADVANCED the big-business agenda.
But the idea of taking over the Dem Party — & presumably using it as a force for defending the interests of ordinary people against the depradations of the giant corporations — is diametrically at odds with the true corporate nature of the Dem Party.
Let’s understand the difference between a nice feel-good movie like Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and the far uglier reality of how things actually work in Washington?
Outside of dreams, it’s a matter of consultants, corporate donations, favorable mainstream media treatment, approval of career party apparatchiks, and so on.
To wean liberals away from their addiction to Democrats, an immense shift of political consciousness is required; this is not yet nearly in place. I think that everyone who does understand the mechanisms that make the Dem Party so pernicious should try to transmit this understanding whenever possible. If you are a writer, a film-maker, someone in a position to spread political ideas, I think this kind of thing should be done. If you simply have friends and family with whom you can exchange ideas, I think discussing the rottenness of Democrats whenever possible is an important activity.
I can’t agree. Obama is not nutless or gutless. He proved it with his decision to go ahead with the operation to kill (or capture, maybe) Bin Laden. Remember, even after more than a year of constant sophisticated surveillance, nobody had actually seen Bin Laden in that compound. The political risk was enormous. Remember the results of Desert One, the failed attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran? It could have been far worse in Abbottabad if a helicopter had crashed and killed civilians or any of dozens of other things had gone wrong. He chose to take that risk, so I don’t believe he’s without courage. It’s just that in this case the game he’s playing is to fool his base, because he REALLY WANTS to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Notwithstanding that Medicaid was extended in Obamacare. It makes me sick at heart that I was bamboozled because I was so hopeful for something better than W.