"George Bush's tax cuts still offend my conscience, and they offend yours."
A new ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee shows then-Senator Obama giving a speech in which he proclaims that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the entire Bush economic philosophy "offend" his and our "consciences."
The spot will run both in that state (the Indianapolis and Evansville markets) and D.C. (MSNBC and CNN) starting this Friday and through early next week, a PCCC official tells the Huffington Post.
Obama Said Bush Tax Cuts Offended His Conscience
Part of the speech as written from which the video is taken. Barack Obama ad libbed a little, rather than "our conscience," he said, "George Bush's tax cuts still offend my conscience, and they offend yours" in the speech.
John McCain said that George Bush's economic policies have led to "great progress" over the last seven years, and so he's promising four more years of tax cuts for CEOs and corporations who didn't need them and weren't asking for them; tax cuts that he once voted against because he said they "offended his conscience."
Well they may have stopped offending John McCain's conscience somewhere along the road to the White House, but George Bush's economic policies still offend ours. Because I don't think that the 232,000 Americans who've lost their jobs this year are seeing the great progress that John McCain has seen. I don't think the millions of Americans losing their homes have seen that progress. I don't think the families without health care and the workers without pensions have seen that progress. And if we continue down the same reckless path, I don't think that future generations who'll be saddled with debt will see these as years of progress.
We already know that John McCain offers more of the same. The question is not whether the other party will bring about change in Washington - the question is, will we?
Because the truth is, the challenges we face are not just the fault of one man or one party. How many years - how many decades - have we been talking about solving our health care crisis? How many Presidents have promised to end our dependence on foreign oil? How many jobs have gone overseas in the 70s, and the 80s, and the 90s? And we still haven't done anything about it. And we know why.
In every election, politicians come to your cities and your towns, and they tell you what you want to hear, and they make big promises, and they lay out all these plans and policies. But then they go back to Washington when the campaign's over. Lobbyists spend millions of dollars to get their way. The status quo sets in. And instead of fighting for health care or jobs, Washington ends up fighting over the latest distraction of the week. It happens year after year after year.
Well this is your chance to say "Not this year." This is your chance to say "Not this time." We have a choice in this election.
Barack Obama speech, April 22, 2008, Pennsylvania Primary Night, in Evansville, Indiana
The Bush Tax Cuts are now the Obama Tax Cuts, and they still offend his conscience (and ours), but now the Democratic President will force through an extension of that failed economic policy by relying on Republican votes.
During the course of this campaign, we've all learned what my wife reminds me of all the time - that I am not a perfect man. And I will not be a perfect President. And so while I will always listen to you, and be honest with you, and fight for you every single day for the next for years, I will also ask you to be a part of the change that we need. Because in my two decades of public service to this country, I have seen time and time again that real change doesn't begin in the halls of Washington, but on the streets of America. It doesn't happen from the top-down, it happens from the bottom-up.
I also know that real change has never been easy, and it won't be easy this time either. The status quo in Washington will fight harder than they ever have to divide us and distract us with ads and attacks from now until November.
Barack Obama speech, April 22, 2008, Pennsylvania Primary Night, in Evansville, Indiana
President Obama now is an impediment to that change. He has become what he warned us against. We cannot rely on him. He had the words right:
real change doesn't begin in the halls of Washington, but on the streets of America. It doesn't happen from the top-down, it happens from the bottom-up.
Reject the enablers of Republican polices.
Fight for change.
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Update I: White House uses scare tactics to sell the tax deal
msnbc.com, The Page: White House uses scare tactics to sell the tax deal
Scare tactics: It’s far from the previous administration’s warnings of a "mushroom cloud," or the inaccurate statement that Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But yesterday, the Obama administration began to use a little fear to sell its tax-cut agreement. "Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip" recession predicted outgoing chief White House economic adviser Larry Summers. And on an OFA conference call yesterday, President Obama said that not passing the agreement would mean that "two million folks would have seen their unemployment insurance run out" and that it would be "damaging to the economy." And the president went even further, suggesting that a million jobs could be lost if no agreement was reached by the end of the year -- something administration officials have said economists have been warning them of privately.
*** A more vigorous sales job: Related or not, this has been the Obama White House’s most vigorous and dynamic sales job we’ve seen in months. For instance, the White House -- from Tuesday to Wednesday night -- blasted out 26 e-mails in 27 hours touting endorsements for the tax compromise, mostly from officials who do not have votes in Congress. As mentioned above, it’s stressing what COULD happen if the deal doesn’t go through (which sounds to us like Hank Paulson’s selling of TARP in ’08). And economic adviser Austan Goolsbee is now featured on a "white board" video arguing that the president’s priorities in the tax agreement (jobless benefits, payroll-tax holiday, and other targeted tax cuts) are a larger part than extending the Bush tax cuts. Of course, this sales job has to be really frustrating to left, which legitimately can ask: "Where was this during the fight over the public option or getting energy/climate change through the Senate"? By the way, Goolsbee appears on MSNBC’s "Daily Rundown," and the show also will interview Sen. Patty Murray in her first TV interview since becoming DSCC chair
Of course, Summers contradicted President Obama from one day previously!
Summer's comments were striking, not just because of their starkness, but also because they contradicted what the president himself said a day earlier.
"We don't have the danger of a double-dip recession," the president said, arguing that last year's stimulus and the work of the Federal Reserve in stabilizing the economy had forestalled such a possibility
Expect the OFA talking points here, although they have no answer to the millions left out, the 99ers.
Washington Post
Update II: House Dems Reject deal!
daveweigel
RT @benpolitico: House Democratic caucus, a Hill staffer emails, just voted to reject the tax deal.
Got it off Twitter first from Dave Weigel
More:
House Dem Caucus votes to reject tax compromise
In a non-binding vote Thursday, the House Democratic Caucus voted to reject the president's tax compromise.
This is significant in the sense that it shows how many House Democrats are angry about the compromise with Republicans to temporarily extend the cuts for the highest earners, but it is not binding in regards to legislation that goes to the floor.
