The Deal And The Norquist Strategy

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Obama Administration
Posted on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:02:17 AM EST
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As I wrote earlier, Dana Milbank defends The Deal as "strategy" by the White House. This has it backwards. It is the Republican strategy that is at at work here- The Grover Norquist strategy. David Dayen writes:

This is the gambit that Republicans have worked for a generation – make taxes so low and deficits so burdensome that pressure builds to slash spending. They claim that tax cuts shouldn’t be counted as part of the deficit but that any spending must be offset or eliminated. It doesn’t have to make sense. Because it’s working.

At this point, Barack Obama's legacy will be the enabling of the GOP's Norquist strategy to demolish the social safety net. The Deal is the first step. President Obama and his team need to start making the point now that The Deal is temporary and that he will veto any attempts to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2012.

Speaking for me only

< The Deal Does Not End The GOP Drive To Cut Taxes For The Wealthy | It's Not A Question Of Style >

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The Deal And The Norquist Strategy | 32 comments (32 topical)

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Obama is simply correcting (5.00 / 3) (#1)
by observed on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:16:39 AM EST

for the "excesses" of the 60's---and fixing FDR's failures too!

: reagan is obama's hero and model (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:39:19 AM EST

He made that clear. (obamafans were [are] the biggest idiots on Earth for sticking us with the obama nightmare - 'sleeping with the enemy')

Two Points (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:23:56 AM EST

President Obama and his team need to start making the point now that The Deal is temporary and that he will veto any attempts to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2012.

1) he won't vow "the deal" is temporary and he will veto tax extensions because he is onboard with destroying the social safety net.

2) he has proven his word ain't worth sh*t; republicans know it, everyone knows it so it wouldn't matter anyway.

for progressives, obama is a Trojan Horse.

First of all, the premise that (5.00 / 4) (#3)
by KeysDan on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:29:10 AM EST

President Obama is at odds with the Norquist strategy, or at least a serious version of it, needs to be established. Being able to accomplish what Republicans have long sought in vain may be a desired legacy. Sort of, only Nixon could go to China.

Second of all, the "Deal" as well as his "majority report" of the Catfood Commission provide a window into his real thinking, more so than concern for the social safety net. If not a full blown Norquist strategy, a Hamilton Project of market driven solutions seems apparent to me.

I think that is exactly right (5.00 / 3) (#8)
by BDB on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:43:14 AM EST

All you need to do is look at what Peter Orzag*, Obama's guy, wants to do - destroy social security, cut the safety net. That is what Obama wants to do and it is not at all at odds with a large part of conservative plan because Obama is a conservative.

*STMBIVA has perhaps the best use of a politician's name as a verb that I've ever seen in discussing the category error of progressives alleging that Obama is somehow not doing what he wants to do (emphasis mine):

The catechism is baseless imputation. There's no way to impute decency into existence. Obama and his flunkies hurl snide, nasty comments because they're snide, nasty people. They evince an arrogant sense of entitlement because that's what they have. They "failed" to push anything hinting at liberal meliorism because they're opposed to it, and they opposed it very effectively. Well enough, in fact, that it's bitten their expendable contingent. They're going to keep opposing it too, and when they're out of office they'll daschle off to their rich rewards.

Orzag, as they say, has already daschled off to his reward from Citi. Obama and his economic "advisors" will follow suit.


: Or as the indispensable Avedon Carol (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by BDB on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:45:05 AM EST

has said, "Only Nixon could go to China and only Obama could go to Hell".

for progressives, obama is a Trojan Horse (5.00 / 1) (#15)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:26:13 AM EST

And I am so disappointed in Bill Clinton using his (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by jawbone on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:29:30 AM EST

reputation to prop up Obama on such an anti-Democratic Party principles' tax plan.

Silent scream time.

Clinton was always a DLC third wayer (none / 0) (#18)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:33:26 AM EST

Like obama, he is a center right corportist and right in tune with the rich helping the rich (hence the blanche lincoln support). Clinton acquired his hero status on the left by beating the hated republicans, not on policy (think NAFTA and "Welfare Reform") but at the political theater republicans threw up as distraction from getting anything done for the people. It was win-win all around for the plutocrats: nothing done for the people, an easily duped left thinking they had a champion when they didn't.


Certainly he projected that (5.00 / 3) (#23)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:47:43 AM EST

The problem with this blanket statement is he raised taxes on the rich and the corporations and cut taxes on the working class.


: How'd that tax rich sound a couple days ago? (none / 0) (#26)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:56:49 AM EST

So What? (5.00 / 2) (#5)
by Gary Z on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:40:42 AM EST

If Obama does say that "the Deal is temporary and that he will veto any attempts to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2012," why believe him?

As long as Obama shows (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by TeresaInSnow2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:41:29 AM EST

that he's only 2% different than Republicans, he isn't going to win in 2012.

Parts of the "deal" will expire by then, and the wind will fall out of the economic sails.

Voters will want change, will want a different Norquist Republican, rather than the current one.

He may very well win (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by BDB on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:51:03 AM EST

as "progressives" continue to tout that 2% as being sufficient to justify voting and supporting him regardless of how awful he is. No doubt they'll denounce the awful (some times), but mostly they'll fall in line and vote for arguably the most right-wing president we've had since WWII* to protect us from all of those conservative "nutjobs", e.g., people who by and large agree with Obama but without the articulateness and (D) after their name.

* This, btw, undermines that Obama is even 2% less evil than the GOP. There have been many things (especially in terms of civil liberties violations, expanding the wars and attacking the social net) that he's been able to do (or will likely be able to do) that Bush was not and to do it with a left that does not constantly accuse him of being a war criminal. Instead, he got the Nobel Peace Prize. No wonder the GOP hate him, when they do it liberals scream they should be jailed, when he does it he gets a peace prize.


: sure dems will fall in line behind... (5.00 / 1) (#21)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:41:53 AM EST

the obama disaster, just like they did last month. How'd that work out with a 50% drop in dem turnout in most places?

The two years is (5.00 / 1) (#16)
by BackFromOhio on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:28:13 AM EST

only for tax cuts for the wealthy

Unemployment deal is 13 months;
payroll tax deduction - `1 year.


Unemployement extesion expiring - yes (5.00 / 1) (#25)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:54:21 AM EST

Tax cuts for billionaires expiring - N.F.W.,
payroll tax reduction expiring - N.F.W.,

...and better yet, paying back the SS Trust fund from general account, N.F.W.! (republicans don't even recognize that there is a SS Trust Fund - remember bush and file cabinet gimmick?)

None of the giveaways to the rich will expire with obama there to cave on everyone of them.


: Agreed but (none / 0) (#29)
by BackFromOhio on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 02:40:18 PM EST

I was addressing another post to make clear that the 'deal' for the 'middle class' has no more than 1/2 the duration of the breaks for the wealthy.

Two questions (5.00 / 3) (#7)
by BobTinKY on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:42:32 AM EST

Does anyone in a leadership position within the Democratic Party understand how truly screwed we are as a result of this deal?
Why don't they seem to care?

If this passes, as seems likely, there is no point in the Democratic Party. Obamabots have ridiculed many of Obama's critics restating the critic's view as Obama=Bush. Well, if the shoe fits, as it increasingly does.

Unfortunately, I think this has become the (5.00 / 4) (#13)
by MO Blue on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:55:01 AM EST

reality.

there is no point in the Democratic Party

It like the Tea Party is just another arm of the Republican Party.


Congressman Weiner (5.00 / 3) (#17)
by BackFromOhio on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:30:38 AM EST

tried to argue the validity of the House Dems' anti-deal position on MTP this a.m. -- and was largely ignored and drowned out by a lot of misstatements; most on panel assumed that tax cuts for the wealthy were pro-jobs, & no one contradicted this. Paul Krugman was rendered equally ineffective this a.m. on ABC.

They need proper talking points.


Did you see how irate Cokie Roberts got (5.00 / 6) (#22)
by ruffian on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:46:09 AM EST

when Krugman suggested letting all the tax cuts expire might have been better? ' you can't do that! That's politically untenable!'

It is untenable to the beltway media. I really don't think there would have been much of a political price, since the nearest election is 2 years away. If the extra tax revenues were used to create jobs it would have been a positive. The job of leadership is to make the politically untenable tenable, if that's a word, Too bad we have no leaders.


: Yes, I saw (5.00 / 1) (#30)
by BackFromOhio on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 02:43:07 PM EST

and Krugman was drowned out too. Neither Krugman nor Weiner got to -- or made a point of -- using Republican support for tax cuts for the wealthy to show that the Repubs do NOT really care about deficit reduction, but rather care about driving up deficits that help the wealthy get even wealthier, and eventually making the rest of us pay for the deficits by claiming we can't "afford" Social Security, etc.

: rest easy, Ruffian. Tenable is a word fershur (none / 0) (#28)
by DFLer on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 01:11:54 PM EST

But what came first, the tenable or the untenable?

: Wonder what tax bracket Cokie is in (none / 0) (#32)
by Romberry on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 08:17:14 PM EST

I get the feeling that Cokie's principles begin and end with her bank account bottom line.
Glad to hear that Krugman said it may have been better to let all the tax cuts expire. For the last few days I've had supporters of President Barack Obama (R) trying to spin Krugman's prior statements to the effect that "it could have been worse" and "at least it provides some stimulus" as unmitigated enthusiastic support. Really.

The Answer is Simple: (none / 0) (#24)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:48:50 AM EST

at least half the dems (probably more) are right in line with it. i.e., stealing from the working classes to enrich the rich; with the US as plutocracy; the rich looking out for the rich. For most dems, concern for the non-rich is a ruse, which is why they ALWAYS cave when it comes time to stand.

Every politician in Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court is rich by any sane measure of decency. They are there to get more rich. The expectation and belief that they are there to look after the non-rich masses is just stupid and delusional. People are motivated by self-interest; just ask Madison.
.


President Barack Obama (R) (5.00 / 8) (#10)
by Anne on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:49:24 AM EST

Try that out for a bit; everything pretty much falls into place and makes sense, doesn't it?

Time to start working off that premise and stop wasting time trying to mind-meld him into being the Democrat we - and the country - need him to be; it isn't going to happen.

Won't happen. Moderate R)'s (none / 0) (#12)
by observed on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 10:54:02 AM EST

never accepted that Bush was batshiit crazy, and Dems won't admit they voted for Newt Gingrich.


: Won't happen, but ... (none / 0) (#19)
by pluege2 on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:36:10 AM EST

that doesn't make it inaccurate.

I wouldn't believe it if he said it (none / 0) (#14)
by robotalk on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 11:19:14 AM EST

So everyone agrees, right? (none / 0) (#27)
by EL seattle on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 12:58:40 PM EST

GOP = Norquist supporters = KKK Radical Corporate Nutjobs = UnAmerican Crypto-Fascists.

Democrats = Bernie Sanders supporters = Fifth Column Socialist Nutjobs = UnAmerican Crytpto-Fascists.

All GOP = Corporate Nutjobs

All Democrats = Socialist Nutjobs

And they're all working for Halliburton.

it's been said before (none / 0) (#31)
by The Addams Family on Sun Dec 12, 2010 at 03:13:35 PM EST

but a big part of the problem is that the country's owners have relocated the corporation's HQ to the Cayman Islands & outsourced its governance to China, Korea, &c.

thus the spectacle of our (s)elected legislators and our (s)elected president scrambling to impress their superiors, like panicked middle managers in a company just acquired by Chainsaw Al