Wednesday punditry, "don't tax me, bro" edition.
Harold Meyerson:
Changelessness we can't believe in. Not much of a slogan, I admit, but a pretty fair statement of where we're at after the president's tax deal with congressional Republicans.
NY Times:
Even with unanimous Republican support, which is not assured, at least 18 Senate Democrats would need to support the package to overcome a potential filibuster. About a dozen Senate Democrats have voiced a willingness to temporarily extend all of the Bush-era tax rates, given the weak economy. Aides said about 30 were firmly opposed, leaving 16 or so undecided.
Mr. Biden, who personally negotiated the deal with the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnnell of Kentucky, used the lunch meeting to emphasize provisions the White House had won, including a one-year payroll tax cut for all workers, a 13-month extension of jobless aid for the long-term unemployed and other steps to help lift the still-struggling economy.
But even the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, expressed unhappiness with the deal and said changes were needed. "This is only a framework," Mr. Reid said. "It’s up to the Congress to pass it. Some in my caucus still have concerns."
Ezra Klein:
To put this in perspective, consider that last week, all Washington could talk about was the potential for a deal on deficit reduction. This week, it actually got a big deficit deal -- but it was a deficit-expansion deal. In the world that politicians claim they live in -- where the deficit is the overriding issue -- the deal couldn't have worked. But we don't live in that world. In this world, tax cuts, not deficits, are the Republicans' central concern, and stimulus, not deficits, obsesses the Democrats.
Which brings us to the liberals. My conversations with various progressives over the past 24 hours have convinced me that the problem is less the specifics of the deal -- though liberals legitimately dislike the tax cuts for the rich, and rightly point out that Obama swore to let them expire -- than the way in which it was reached. Put simply, Obama and the Democrats didn't fight for them. There were no veto threats or serious effort to take the case to the public. ...
That the Obama administration has turned out to be fairly good at the inside Washington game of negotiations and legislative compromise and quite bad at communicating to the public and keeping their base excited is not what most would have predicted during the 2008 campaign. But it's true.
David Leonhardt:
A year ago, President Obama and the Democrats made the mistake of assuming that an economic recovery was under way. This week’s deal to extend the Bush tax cuts shows that the White House’s top priority is avoiding the same mistake again — even if it has to upset many fellow Democrats in the process.
Mr. Obama effectively traded tax cuts for the affluent, which Republicans were demanding, for a second stimulus bill that seemed improbable a few weeks ago. Mr. Obama yielded to Republicans on extending the high-end Bush tax cuts and on cutting the estate tax below its scheduled level. In exchange, Republicans agreed to extend unemployment benefits, cut payroll taxes and business taxes, and extend a grab bag of tax credits for college tuition and other items.
Back to Ezra and how it was done. The trust that the rest will be fought for or defended (including social security, status post Simpson-Bowles) is just not there.
NY Times/Economix blog:
"We estimate that the deal as described would save or create 2.2 million jobs, excluding jobs associated with the extension of the broader-based portions of the Bush tax cuts on which all parties were agreed," write Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger of the Center for American Progress.
Including the broader so-called middle-class tax cuts brings the total number of jobs created to 3.1 million.
Assuming this calculation is roughly on track, 3.1 million jobs is nothing to sneeze at. But if stimulus is what Washington truly wants — which many suspect, though the exact term "stimulus" has passed nary a politician’s lips — politicians would most likely get a bigger bang for the buck with a different mix of programs.
NY Times editorial:
Liberal Democrats are in revolt at the tax deal that President Obama struck with Republicans on Monday, and it is not hard to understand why. By temporarily extending income tax breaks for the richest Americans, and cutting estate taxes for the ultrawealthy, the deal will redistribute billions of dollars from job creation to people who do not need the money.
But the Democrats should vote for this deal, because it is the only one they are going to get.
On Elizabeth Edwards:
Elizabeth Edwards, who helped bolster the political career of her husband, John Edwards, faced tragedy and heartache with a belief in, as she said in her final note, "the power of resilience and hope."
"She was an inspiration to all who knew her, and to those who felt they knew her," said Vice President Joe Biden in a statement.
When all is said and done, she was one of us.