By Brigitte L. Nacos
At the heights of the staged Republican-Tea Party protests against a less than modest health care reform, I became convinced that this was the first phase of a one-term presidency. The president would not be reelected, I thought, because he tried to do and fought for what was right for the mass of Americans, for the country.
Now, I am convinced that we are near the half-time mark of Obama’s presidency. He will not be reelected because he does not even try to do what is right for the mass of Americans, what is right for the country.
He has waved the white flag of surrender without making even an effort to fight the attack dogs on the right.
Instead of sticking to his campaign promise of repealing the hefty tax deductions for the better-off strata that helped to create the deficit fiasco and keeping it in place for the vast majority of the rest, he joined Republicans in continuing to make even multimillionaires and billionaires richer.
Republicans agreed to an extension of unemployment payments to the far too large army of America’s unemployed.
And, as the president had the nerve to tell the nation last night, “In exchange, the Republicans have asked for more generous treatment of the estate tax than I think is wise or warranted.”
A double dip for the rich is “wise and warranted?”
Wise and warranted would be to let the Republicans in Congress vote down a tax package that would extent the Bush tax cuts merely to incomes up to $250,000 and also reject an extension of unemployment benefits.
That would expose what Republicans stand for and that their for-the-American-people rhetoric is a farce. They are the representatives for the haves only. And that would expose the myth of trickle-down economics!
To be sure, Republicans are fighting harder than the man without spine in the White House. Obama, in fact, appeased the right with another pleasant cave-in last week: he froze the salaries of the civilian federal workforce.
The savings from that freeze will be a drop in the bucket compared to what the continued tax breaks for the wealthy will cost: $70 billion a year.
The already horrific and very dangerous federal budget deficit will grow up further and faster. Never mind the Republican-Tea Party’s screams against that deficit.
They’ll try to hurt Main Street Americans further by cutting every program that the rich and they themselves do not need.
And, judging from the president’s surrender on the irresponsible Bush tax cut scheme, Mr. Obama will be surrender once again.
After all, the president told us last night that the “American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories.”
Symbolic battles and symbolic victories? The Republican-Tea Party won a real political battle and a very real victory, however harmful for the nation.
And they will not stop fighting for and winning more.
The collective answer to the American people through the U.S. Senate last weekend was saved. Obama plans "rich people" and their goal to raise taxes while other Americans the same tax rates went to a vote, and Senate President by his Democratic Party control, rejected the plan.
Posted by: flash menu | December 17, 2010 at 04:52 AM