Repubs "holding hostage" for tax cuts

[Morilore]

Okay, political ignoramus incoming. Republicans are said to have "held hostage" the government to the tax cuts for the rich, and Obama was quoted as saying something to the effect of "you say you won't negotiate with hostage-takers until someone gets hurt." Why is the power dynamic in this direction? The tax cuts were going to expire, and doing nothing is the easiest thing in the world, especially for the United States Senate. Why didn't Democrats hold the tax cuts hostage for things that they wanted? Ah, I hear everyone say: the Democrats wanted to extend cuts for the middle-class but not everyone. So: what would have happened if the Democrats had abandoned that position and said "fuck all your tax cuts?" Was there something else I'm missing that's too obvious?

(In before hurf hurf, spineless, horf dorf Obama.)

[Mr Bean]

Sorry but the response is hurf hurf Obama is spineless.
If Obama had done nothing then all taxes cuts would have expired. Those on the economic side of things think taxes being raised on the lower, middle and the rich would have been a "bad" thing as far as the economy goes, how bad is the debate question. Some saying it would have instantly cratered the economy (Read Fox News) while most thinking it would have a mild to moderate short term negative economic impact and then things would adjust.

What's worse after all, having your taxes go up 3% or not having a job? The joblessness of the recovery has been the fundamental problem with the recovery. And it gets worse quarter by quarter as more and more people fall off of unemployment and those coming out of school come into a job market where fresh out of college kids are fighting with people with 5+ years of experience who are more and more taking lower level jobs just to have a job of some kind.

Morilore you must understand this, Obama's catch phrase is that he's is going to "get beyond partisanship" However in Washington as the game is played now, the only way to "get beyond partisanship" is to give the Republicans exactly what they want. Any less than "exactly what they want" results in Republicans yelling about how partisan the President is acting and the media repeats it verbatim what they say without any fact checking and Obama reacts to it like any of Pavlov's dogs and tries to do more to appease them. When the President fights now it's against Democrats only for not falling in line. He calls out Republicans from time to time but there is no follow through. No "gosh darn these Republicans doing X".

It's been put forward that the President is one of the following
A. Weak
B. Has no pattern recognition
C. Complicit

Take you pick because while you might say eight months ago the President was a brilliant chess player who was ten moves ahead of the Republicans... you can't say the same thing now that he has signs the polices that passed through congress which were at best contain one part of the Presidents agenda for every nine parts Republican "compromise".
Again a Republican compromise is one in which you give the other person exactly what they asked for in exchange for nothing.

[SirNitram]

They refused to grant any continuation of unemployment without it. I realize the popular opinion is that it was just an excuse, but I've never been a good part of the consensus. There were no signs of any unemployment passing without some kind of deal, and effectively saying 'It'd be an awful thing if something happened to all those folks without work...' is either holding hostages or running a protection racket.