In signing the debt deal passed by the United States Congress, President Obama has once again caved in to the people who hate him. This deal is being touted as a "compromise" in order gain approval from Congress to raise the debt ceiling. It was not. As Mehdi Hasan so rightly pointed out, it was not a compromise but a capitulation. This is not the first of the Obama administration.Back in December, Obama was having to contend with the Republican Party threatening to cut off unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed if he did not renew the economically disastrous tax cuts of the Bush administration. As always, he allowed the Republicans to win.
At the time I was working as an intern at New Statesman so I was able to post a blog entry on the subject. I believe a lot of what I said in that entry is still relevant today. For example, I said that
[t]he Democratic Party has been infuriating the American left for years because it appears to be utterly unwilling to fight the Republicans on any issue. The GOP is moving further and further to the right side of the political spectrum, which is dragging what should be the centre to the right. Instead of having a right-left divide, the weakness of the Democratic Party has resulted in a far-right/centre-right divide.
The debt ceiling debacle has been the perfect example of this point. Obama has been the very embodiment of the weak Democrat. The fact that he ran such a great campaign in 2008 on the idea of changing Washington from the inside makes this realization all the more infuriating.
At least the capitulation on the Bush Tax Cuts resulted in unemployment benefits being extended. This debt deal is an entirely Republican piece of legislation. It has deep, savage cuts to government spending with no tax increases on the rich, and no closing of tax loopholes. It did not even call for the tax breaks for private jet owners to end. Any Republican president would be proud of such a deal. In fact, Speaker of the House John Boehner said in an interview that this deal gave him 98% of what he wanted (one shudders to think what the other 2% included).
This is a terrible piece of legislation that in all likelihood will suffocate the economic recovery of the United States. If that happens, and unemployment is still sky-high come November 2012, who is going to get the blame? That's right, President Obama. The Republican message will be that a Democrat cannot be trusted to run a government because he has done nothing to improve the economic climate. The fact that the reason for that is that he refuses to stick by Democratic principles will be irrelevant. In my December blog entry I said that "Obama has given the Republicans the stick with which to beat him" and once again this is the case.
The Republicans are not interested in saving the US economy. Their priority is to unseat Obama from the Presidency, and it seems to be by any means necessary. If the economy fails, they benefit. These are not people with whom one can negotiate in good faith, as Obama constantly does. At first it was admirable that he wanted to be seen as the President of everyone instead of just those who voted for him but now it is infuriating. This is a man of great intellect yet he is unwilling to draw an obvious conclusion from the available evidence.
The fact that Obama has capitulated to Republican demands on just about every major issue just gives the GOP incentive to continue with their tactic of acting as national hostage-takers. His insistence on working with people whose sole purpose is to destroy him politically will be his undoing. The election of 2012 looked like a great prospect for Obama only a few short months ago; Bin Laden had been killed and the Republicans were having to defend their position to destroy Medicare. Now though, he will have to contend with an economy that will get worse thanks to Republican ideas while Republicans claim that things would be better if only he listened to them more.
Comedian Bill Maher said that it would be a shame if after four years of a Democratic presidency, the US had not tried any Democratic policies. I find it extremely difficult to disagree with that sentiment. Supporting Obama has become extremely difficult. The only thing keeping a lot of the left doing so is the knowledge that the only realistic alternative is a Republican presidency.
At least the capitulation on the Bush Tax Cuts resulted in unemployment benefits being extended. This debt deal is an entirely Republican piece of legislation. It has deep, savage cuts to government spending with no tax increases on the rich, and no closing of tax loopholes. It did not even call for the tax breaks for private jet owners to end. Any Republican president would be proud of such a deal. In fact, Speaker of the House John Boehner said in an interview that this deal gave him 98% of what he wanted (one shudders to think what the other 2% included).
This is a terrible piece of legislation that in all likelihood will suffocate the economic recovery of the United States. If that happens, and unemployment is still sky-high come November 2012, who is going to get the blame? That's right, President Obama. The Republican message will be that a Democrat cannot be trusted to run a government because he has done nothing to improve the economic climate. The fact that the reason for that is that he refuses to stick by Democratic principles will be irrelevant. In my December blog entry I said that "Obama has given the Republicans the stick with which to beat him" and once again this is the case.
The Republicans are not interested in saving the US economy. Their priority is to unseat Obama from the Presidency, and it seems to be by any means necessary. If the economy fails, they benefit. These are not people with whom one can negotiate in good faith, as Obama constantly does. At first it was admirable that he wanted to be seen as the President of everyone instead of just those who voted for him but now it is infuriating. This is a man of great intellect yet he is unwilling to draw an obvious conclusion from the available evidence.
The fact that Obama has capitulated to Republican demands on just about every major issue just gives the GOP incentive to continue with their tactic of acting as national hostage-takers. His insistence on working with people whose sole purpose is to destroy him politically will be his undoing. The election of 2012 looked like a great prospect for Obama only a few short months ago; Bin Laden had been killed and the Republicans were having to defend their position to destroy Medicare. Now though, he will have to contend with an economy that will get worse thanks to Republican ideas while Republicans claim that things would be better if only he listened to them more.
Comedian Bill Maher said that it would be a shame if after four years of a Democratic presidency, the US had not tried any Democratic policies. I find it extremely difficult to disagree with that sentiment. Supporting Obama has become extremely difficult. The only thing keeping a lot of the left doing so is the knowledge that the only realistic alternative is a Republican presidency.
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