Obama tries bi-partisanship, get's knocked around (again)

[Thanas]

EDIT: Source

A day that started off with the rare sight of top Obama officials sitting down with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to hash out a tax-cut deal deteriorated almost immediately Wednesday, as both parties reverted to partisan form.

Senate Republicans threatened to grind the Senate to a halt. House Democrats announced plans to force a vote on middle-class only tax cuts – with Republicans crying foul.

And the idea of a bipartisan tax-cut bargain that seemed possible at Tuesday’s White House meeting?

It had practically evaporated before lunchtime.

To many on Capitol Hill, the outcome already appears determined. With only weeks until the Bush tax cuts expire Dec. 31, and President Barack Obama insisting that Congress resolve the issue before then, the start of the bipartisan talks did little to change the conventional wisdom – that Democrats will ultimately cede to Republican demands to extend all the tax cuts temporarily.

“It is really just a question of when it is going to happen,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “Is it going to happen next week? Is it going to happen Christmas Eve? Is it going to happen in January? To me, it is pretty much a foregone conclusion.”

The question now is what Democrats can get in return for agreeing to the temporary extension, namely votes on other key bills that they want to move before Congress adjourns, such as the START Treaty and unemployment insurance.

Many progressive Democrats view the tax-cut fight as a key post-election test for their party and the White House, but a sense of unease mounted on both sides of the Capitolon Wednesday, according to senior Democratic aides.

"There is growing concern among congressional Democrats that the White House will cave early and without a fight on tax cuts for the middle class and job-creating proposals, and not get much in return except, possibly, a vote on the START Treaty," one senior Democratic aide said late Wednesday.

Democrats and Republicans also need to consider extending a number of short-term tax incentives for businesses and individuals. Staff was directed late Wednesday to compile a list of so-called tax extenders that could pass the House and Senate — "if we decided to move forward," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a member of the bipartisan negotiating group.

"We're sorting through the details," Van Hollen said. "We're still talking in somewhat general terms."

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said he would be open to voting for a temporary extension of the high-end tax cuts, but it “depends on what is all in the package.”

“We’ve got our appropriations bills, we’ve got a lot of other things floating around here, the START Treaty, so we have to see what is in the package,” Harkin said. “There may be some package I could vote for.”

Only a day after Obama extracted a pledge from Democrats and Republicans to work together, Wednesday played out as if the White House summit never happened.

Senate Republicans issued a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowing to block any measure that doesn’t deal with tax cuts or government spending, killing the chances of passage for a Democratic wish list of bills.

House Democrats announced plans to vote Thursday on a bill extending tax cuts only for families earning less than $250,000 – a move that Republicans called a sign of bad faith that undermined the bipartisan talks. It is expected to pass the House, but go nowhere in the Senate.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) railed once again against Republicans as defenders of the rich, willing to spend $700 billion in tax cuts for people she said don’t need a break.

““It is amazing to me how really downright stupid the Democrats are, especially the leaders around the White House,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told POLITICO. “The best thing they could do is get rid of the Congress right now” by finishing must-do bills and leaving town.

Obama will never learn, will he?

[The Romulan Republic]

Based on what you bolded, it's worth it if the START Treaty is your priority.

Of course, I expect the Republicans to quickly turn on Obama the moment they get what they want in any case.

[xt828]

What I don't get about this is that people say that Obama comes from the apparently cutthroat world of Chicago politics, yet he clearly has no comprehension of how to get anything done in politics.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

What I don't get about this is that people say that Obama comes from the apparently cutthroat world of Chicago politics, yet he clearly has no comprehension of how to get anything done in politics.

Obama has never been in a leadership position where he had to engage in the time-honored Congressional art of horse-trading and negotiation. In fact, Obama has repeatedly expressed disdain for the process.

He has a habit of preemptively giving the Republicans something they want, in the clearly naive hope that they'll return the favor. To him, I suppose it's trying to rise "above the fray." But what he apparently fails to get is that the GOP isn't interested in negotiating with him. Their chief strategic goals are to see him go down in flames in 2012, and the restoration of a single-party government with the GOP as the single party.

And, besides that, it's a well-known psychological principle that if you give someone something for free, they're less likely to appreciate it than if you'd made them work for it. So his chosen negotiating strategy is actually helping to create GOP obstinacy. Since he's not saying "I'll give you this if you do this other thing for me," he's saying "here's a present." To which, the natural response will be "Well, that's nice, but why not give us this other thing too, and we can negotiate from there?" Which is a terrible place to begin negotiations.

Which is why I shall, henceforth, refer to him as O-"the GOP's got me by the balls and I like it"-bama.

[Simon_Jester]

Based on what you bolded, it's worth it if the START Treaty is your priority.

What competent or responsible leader would decide that the START Treaty is more important than the basic solvency of the federal government?

We are in a domestic economic crisis- arguably multiple overlapping crises. Now is not the time to sacrifice domestic concerns for a strategic arms treaty with a nation no one's seriously expected to have to fight for twenty years.

[Edi]

What they need to do is just sit on their hands and let the tax cuts expire. If the Republicans then want to reinstate them later, it will require an entirely new law and the Democrats could use that to extort all kinds of concessions from the Republicans to get middle class tax cuts.

The collective spinelessness and incompetence on their side just means that they will cave in anyway, and the Rethuglicans know it.

[Zaune]

We are in a domestic economic crisis- arguably multiple overlapping crises. Now is not the time to sacrifice domestic concerns for a strategic arms treaty with a nation no one's seriously expected to have to fight for twenty years.

Because Vladimir Putin is having a midlife crisis?

On a more serious note, it would be very unwise to concentrate wholly on the current economic crisis at the expense of a treaty that might head off much bigger problems a few years down the line. Russia's fairly stable in the short to medium term, but when Putin finally goes there's going to be one hell of a power vacuum.

[Simon_Jester]

The new treaty won't change that. Russia would never agree to total nuclear disarmament, nor is it in their interests to do so, and as long as Russia has a nuclear arsenal, "instability in Russia" is still a threat.

When the White House, under these conditions, explicitly says that they're saving political capital for the START treaty by compromising on economic issues, when they come right out and state that they aren't willing to fight for their own budget because they want that treaty... they're making a mistake.

The real question, of course, is whether the Democrats fight on the question of keeping the tax cuts for the rich. If they cave on extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class I can understand, but if they cave on the millionaires' taxes it's because they're screwing up.

[MKSheppard]

Why are we even thinking seriously about START?

It would lower US/Russian nuclear arsenals to such a level that a disarming first strike becomes a possibility.

This in turn would increase the rationale to "use them or lose them" during a possible war warning.

Because now with your much reduced arsenal, if you wait to confirm the strike before launching retaliation, it means a major portion of your arsenal goes up in a puff of mushroom clouds.

So you launch much earlier than you would with a thousand missiles sitting in silos, or 1,500 nuclear armed bombers; because you can't afford to take it on the chin and still retain a credible second strike retaliatory capability.

All the particularly more so since Russia has 600 nuclear weapons devoted to defense of Russia exclusively, which mean that your much weakened second strike retaliatory capability inflicts even less damage.

So in the end NEW Start would just increase the possibility of nuclear war, paradoxically enough since it doesn't bind any actors other than Russia/US. The world would be a much safer and more stable place if there were once again 31,000 nuclear warheads in the United States' hands and an equivalent number in Russian hands.

EDITED A FEW TIMES FOR CLARITY.

[Zaune]

New START doesn't ban SLBMs, and even one boomer getting its missiles off would be enough to make it a very Pyrrhic victory.

[Ritterin Sophia]

New START doesn't ban SLBMs, and even one boomer getting its missiles off would be enough to make it a very Pyrrhic victory.

No, it won't. Most capital cities by themselves take nearly a dozen warheads to get all the targets we need for any given strategic retaliation. Nevermind more developed countries which have more than one major city to speak of.