PEOPLE WANT President Obama to lead the fiscal scheme talks. And the person taking the biggest hit right now is Speaker John Boehner. Compared to Obama, who sits at 49 approval, 42 disapproval, Republican John Boehner’s approval is 25%, 49% disapproving.
WSJ/NBC polling continues to reveal Republicans are on quicksand on taxes for the 2%.
But a majority of respondents (56 percent) say they’ll blame both sides equally.
Still, twice as many Americans say they trust the president more in handling this fiscal situation (38 percent) than House Speaker John Boehner and the congressional Republicans (19 percent).
And significant majorities believe Obama holds a clear mandate from the election on issues related to this subject:
68 percent say he has a mandate on cutting taxes for families earning less than $250,000 per year
65 percent say he has a mandate on reducing the deficit by both increasing taxes on the wealthy and reducing federal spending
And 59 percent say he has a mandate on eliminating the Bush-era tax cuts for household income over $250,000 a year.
President Obama has the political capital to ram just about anything he wants down the repugnantklan/teabagger’s throats at THIS moment in time…will he use it?
If he were inclined to use it, I think he’d check this list, and choose either items three or four, and possibly both. He hasn’t, and my bet is he won’t. I’d love to lose that bet, but I won’t.
Of course, Congress and the President could choose item two and stake out their position while letting government services go on, but we both know that’s not going to happen. Neither appears to want it to.
I hope he lets John Boehner & his crazy caucus twist in the wind until 11:55 p.m. December 31.
Not only do I want to see Boehner and his crazy caucus twist in the wind until 11:55 pm December 31, but I want them to gag as Obama rams his tax plan down their throats. Anything that diminishes the GOP’s control on this country has my vote.
I don’t know; the vast media echo chamber is pushing really, really, hard this meme that “most Americans want compromise”. I don’t want compromise. Do you want compromise?
Let’s look at our last piece of “compromise” legislation – ACA. Wal-Mart is no longer offering health coverage to new employees working under 30 hours; 24 states have told the administration to drop dead regarding setting up state exchanges to buy health insurance. Ten million Americans will find themselves between a rock and a hard place in 2014 when they are required by law to carry health insurance – excluding the unemployed!
A public option or Medicare-4-all would have been a no-compromise position and easier and cheaper to implement.
Screw compromise when it worsen things.
I’ve already stated that the fiscal scheme isn’t worth honoring.
Obama’s man in the Senate, Durbin, has just leaked that the President has backed off of Medicare eligibility going from 65 to 67.
Pressure. Works.
I hope you’re right.
I expect compromise. I don’t want it. I expect it, because it’s almost inevitable. It’s part of how our process works when there are competing interests with some power to affect our politicians’ careers.
But compromise means that both sides get something they really need out of the deal, and aren’t worse off in the bargain. The Democrats lost the ACA compromise. That’s part of the reason they no longer control the House. Of course, must of we citizens lost, too, but it’s my somewhat cynical opinion that we don’t really have a side any longer.
Change for the sake of change without improvement is political masturbation. The Democratic Party should be blind.