Obama, Taxes, and the Left

Some Leftists are livid that Obama struck a deal with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts.

President Barack Obama reached agreement Monday with Republican leaders in Congress on a broad tax package that would extend the Bush-era income tax cuts for two years, reduce worker payroll taxes for one year and give more favorable treatment to business investments.

Other elements of the deal include a temporary reinstatement of the estate tax at 35%—the level favored by most Republican lawmakers—as well as an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

"We have arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement,'' Mr. Obama said on Monday night, capping weeks of negotiations with leaders in Congress.

The outcome of the negotiations is vital, because the current tax levels signed into law by President George W. Bush expire on Dec. 31. Unless Congress acts, tax rates on virtually all Americans who pay income taxes will rise on Jan. 1. That could affect economic growth and even holiday sales.

In reaching the deal, whose details still need to be worked out, Mr. Obama brushed past the demands of many in his own party to curb tax cuts for the wealthy. Some liberal lawmakers and activists were left seething, particularly over last-minute concessions to Republicans on the estate tax. Democratic leaders didn't agree to the deal during meetings on Monday with Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, according to a House aide.

"I can tell you with certainty that legislative blackmail of this kind by the Republicans will be vehemently opposed by many, if not most, Democrats," said Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.).

In the Senate, Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) called it "an understatement" to say he was disappointed.

Yes, Dems are mad.

An example of liberal outrage over Obama's tax concessions can be found at Firedoglake, a far-Left website.

The title of this blog post shows the frustration of the Leftists with Obama. They're fit to be tied.

In case you didn’t know, George Bush is still the effective President of the United States. The title of the New York Times lead article inadvertently proclaims this truth:

Bush Tax Cut Deal with Jobless Aid Said to Be Near.

It’s as though George Bush is still President. And just consider what Bush redux is doing.

It seems our faux Democratic President, now in full moral and policy collapse, and with the mindset of what once passed for a moderate Republican, views his job as negotiating with the most radically conservative wing of his radically conservative party to give them what they want, while throwing a bone to the mantle of compassionate conservatism. Give the jobless benefits for another year at a cost of about $60 billion, but pay for it politically — deficit? what deficit? — with another bailout to the rich — an outright gift of $40 to $60 billions each year over two or three years that will surely grow to $700 billion in a decade and trillions more in those later decades when we’re supposed to be hysterical over a gap in Social Security.

So the jobless get a few hundred per month so they don’t have to live in their cars, unless they’re also losing their homes, and the rich get a cool hundred billion or two and trillions later. That’s damned expensive uemployment insurance, especially when you don’t have a meaningful program to put people back to work. Any morally sentient being would call this blackmail, extortion, and arrest the perps, but we don’t do that in America anymore...

Obama isn't just being abandoned by his fellow Leftists. He's being mercilessly pummeled, too.

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.

James K. Galbraith writes:

President Bush never really pretended to be a President for ordinary folks; President Obama did. Bush was who he was; Obama held out, fostered, and promoted vast hopes, mobilizing the American population behind his leadership on that basis. And he disappointed those hopes -- to use a very harsh word, one could say he has betrayed those hopes. How can one therefore blame the voters for acting as they have acted?

Obama chose to wage class warfare.

Now that's come back to bite him. Using his own terminology, he has signed on to tax cuts for the rich. There's no getting around it.

Obama promised to spread the wealth around. Alas, his socialist utopia isn't blossoming as he planned. His comrades trusted him to deliver but he failed.

Will the Leftists forgive him?

Is Russ Feingold waiting in the wings?