SOMETIMES YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE TO TEMPORIZE
The Democrats, led by Obama, must visibly, publicly, and loudly fight the extension of tax cuts for the top 2% and the Bush-era revisions to estate taxes.
To not do so will make them complicit. They will be complicit in selling out the middle class, complicit in using "the ATM of the next generation".
To become complicit is to basically give the GOP back its mojo, right?
LEADERSHIP YOU CAN BELIEVE IN
They have to find their voice on long-term fiscal issues, too, and this is a key opportunity to do it, no matter what Geithner, Summers, or Orzag say. They don't need to wait-and-see for a mystery bipartisan group report, that may never arrive.
A strong President can, like Reagan, go over the GOP leadership, appealing directly to people to "Call your new Republican Congressman and tell them you don't want your kids future mortgaged so that the top 2% can have a tax break"
The polling is good enough. A strong President can, like Reagan, go over the GOP leadership, appealing directly to people to "Call your new Republican Congressman and tell them you don't want your kids' future mortgaged so that the top 2% can have a tax break" or people with massive estates should pass them on at Bush-level tax rates.If the Democrats eventually want to compromise, after they have put up a fight, then let it be the top 1.5%, not the top 2%. But, if they don't fight, they risk complicity in the GOP's inane posture on debt-free tax cuts.
CAN'T SWEEP IMPORTANT CHOICES UNDER THE TABLE
It's not a question of scoring political points, of putting principle needlessly or mindlessly ahead of progress. It IS a question of doing what is right by the country, in the long term. There is no need for that question to be postponed.
It will give the Democrats a chance to remind the public that they already got a tax cut, as part of the stimulus.
This one is a good start, even if it hasn't been teed-up well, for the lame duck.
A quick, backroom compromise is going to make it look like they deliberately put the issue off until after the election, so they didn't have to "come clean" with the base.
Some strange calculation that their election prospects in 2012 will be better by extending everything is misguided. A rebounding economy in 2012 is not guaranteed and the base will remember that they didn't put up a fight. Look at the union-voter returns for 2010 in the heartland. Folks notice when the people who are supposed to have their back in Washington are busy doing other things...
