An unmitigated disaster. Deficits will balloon even more, and the tax cuts will do nothing - NOTHING - to stimulate the economy. If there is anything to the Laffer curve - and I think there might be - we are far, far to the low tax side of the peak.
Next, people who might actually know something.
No help for 99ers. That sucks.
Southern Beale speaks for the left.
Krugman didn't like it going in.
I still think he's an optimist.
Update: Here's James Kwak.
And Obama will no longer be able to say the tax cuts were a mistake made by President Bush that he was letting expire. Now he owns the mistake. This is a long way of saying that this isn’t a two-year tax cut to stimulate the economy (with a 0.29 multiplier, remember) in a recession. It’s a wedge of about 2 percent of GDP that is part of the structural deficit for the foreseeable future . . ..
So finally, you have to ask, what does Barack Obama want? Does he really like most of the Bush tax cuts? Does he really think the bulk of the tax cuts are good for the country, and that going along with the tax cuts in the top brackets is a reasonable price to pay to keep them?
Update 2 (H/T to the LW):
Bernie Sanders is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it.
Update 3 (12/08): Yes, this is "The Public Option Debate All Over Again." Obama starts from an already compromised position, then gives in from there.
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4 comments:
Thanks for the link, I commented on your earlier post. You are 100% correct, there is NO ONE speaking for the American people right now. I feel like we are in an upside down world: the tax cuts for everyone BUT millionaires passes with 53 votes yet that's a fail. How is that possible? How is a majority a minority? I don't freaking get it.
It's repugnicant tyranny, aka - the golden rule - if you have the gold, you can make the rules.
We're doomed!
JzB
The disaster here is that Obama gave the Republicans the tax cuts in exchange for unemployment benefits... but got 1 year of unemployment benefits for 2 years of tax cuts. What are the odds that a Republican House is going to vote to extend unemployment benefits again 1 year from now? It's as if Obama offered to give the Rethugs $2 if they gave him $1... how is that a fair deal anywhere on this planet?!
I'm feeling rather down. Maybe it's just the holidays. I think I want to go camping in the desert for a week or two away from this lunacy, it's either that or ingest enough alcohol to make my liver scream, which is hardly the solution (alcohol is a depressant after all). Siiiiiigh. WASF!
- Badtux the "If Obama was a poker player, he'd tell everybody his hand" Penguin
Obama promised us change and there has been change between his campaigning and his governing. He talked a good game during the campaign, but hasn't figured out he needs to work with his supporters not the opposition.
Not only has he been showing all his cards, he hasn't played all the cards he was dealt.
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