Barack Obama showed his angry side at a news conference Tuesday. The strange thing was, it was his left side.
If you watched, you know Obama is mad at those on the left who are mad at him for not being being sufficiently mad at those on the right who forced him to cave on the Bush tax cuts.
It all makes perfect sense — if you read it through a couple of times, anyway. And, of course, if you think anything in Washington could possibly make any sense.
Obama called the news conference to defend his tax-cut compromise with Republicans. The deal, according to most liberal economists, turned out better than Obama could have reasonably expected. He got a fairly substantial mini-stimulus package in exchange for what he called the Republican “holy grail” — tax breaks for the rich. But there are compromises and there are compromises. This is not one that Henry Clay would have put on his resume.
Compromises, by definition, leave both sides unhappy, but in this case, the so-called compromise leaves one side ecstatic. You don’t have to ask who won and who lost. In fact, there may be a mini-revolution brewing among Democrats, who are threatening not to go along with the plan.
This is about the hated Bush tax cuts, after all — the ones that Obama, as presidential candidate, promised to undo. This is about the past nine years of economic policy and the philosophical battle over whether lowering taxes necessarily increases revenue.
That’s why Obama came out to address his base. What Obama doesn’t get is that the art of the deal isn’t the only issue. Obama is a pragmatist in a decidedly unpragmatic time. If there were ever a moment when Democrats were ready for a fight, it would be now, in the days after the midterm shellacking.
It’s not just fiery lefties who are upset here, either. We’re talking Mark Udall, who has said he opposes the deal at this point. Heck, we’re talking conservative Democrat Mary Landrieu, who slammed the “almost, you know, moral corruptness” of the deal.
It’s hard to argue her point, even if you object to the syntax. Obama had to trade an extension of the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 in order to get a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits and a cut in the payroll tax. He had to agree to extend the tax cuts for the rich or the Republicans were ready to allow tax cuts for everyone else to expire at year’s end.
Moral corruptness? Sure. And as it stands, the deal is also a deficit breaker, but deficits don’t seem to matter to Republicans if there are tax cuts for the wealthy involved. And as if that weren’t enough, there’s a bonus reduction on the estate tax for those who happen to be fortunately ultra-ultra-wealthy and, unfortunately, near the end of their ultra-ultra- wealthy days.
I’m waiting for the Tea Party protesters to show up at the Republican Party cloak room.
As Obama said, the Republicans were “hostage-takers” who were ready to let tax cuts for the middle class expire and prepared to insist that unemployment benefits were just an excuse for people not to look for jobs.
What Democrats want to know is why Obama hasn’t been using the “hostage-taker” line all along — and why, if he ever did say it, he didn’t say it more loudly.
Sen. Chuck Schumer wanted to raise the stakes by making the tax cuts begin for those making $1 million and thereby force Republicans to defend tax breaks that literally go to millionaires.
At his news conference, Obama wanted to make the case that he was the adult in the room — that this was no time to look for symbolic victories or, for that matter, fights for the sake of feeling good about fighting. He’s right about symbols. We’re still in an economic crisis. Unemployment is staggeringly high, and real people are getting hurt.
“This isn’t an abstract debate,” Obama said. “This is real money for real people, and it will make a real difference in the lives of the folks who sent us here.”
But he’s wrong about the fight. Republicans are disingenuous when they talk about small businesses not hiring because they’re unsure of their tax position. As several economists have pointed out, if it were certainty that worried Republicans, they wouldn’t have agreed to a two-year extension on tax cuts. Everything will become just as uncertain again just in time for the 2012 election.
What Obama wants from his liberal allies is some credit. He got a deal, and deals will become tougher to make in the new Congress. When asked by a reporter about where he’s willing to draw a line in the sand, he said the question was the same he heard during the public-option debate from those who thought getting health coverage for all, without a public option, wasn’t a good enough deal.
Except this time, Obama is dealing with, in his own words, hostage-takers. And the rest of us will have to pay.
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-5428 or mlittwin@denverpost.com.
