JeffL
1761
BTW, one thing that set up a lot of this screw up was Congress passing an extension of all of the tax cuts earlier this year.
JeffL
1762
Krugman, of whom I am not a fan, stated it succinctly: The GOP said give us everything we want or we will push the economy off the cliff, and Obama said “OK”.
JeffL
1763
And what really, really is even more wrong about all of this is this is legislation that would never have been pass-able under any other circumstances.
Interesting, Krugman is absolutely scathing in his criticism of Obama in all of this.
Agreed. Maybe some part of this is caffeine withdrawal, but I think I’ve moved into the ‘the hell with Obama’ camp. I’m trying to see this current situation as something other than craven capitulation in the face of unreasoning opposition.
JeffL
1765
Man, Krugman has really turned on Obama.
JeffL
1766
LOL, Krugman’s facial expression when the guy on the panel from the American something for Tax Reform is speaking is kinda what I and my colleagues (scientists) would look like if a guy from the Flat Earth Society was talking about geology. Even though I’m not a Krugman fan, he does a good job of concisely tearing everything the guy says apart as soon as he says it.
Hugin
1767
Krugman has been pretty relentlessly critical of Obama for a while now.
jeffd
1768
I think the President’s biggest mistake is that people kept trying to give him weapons (14th amendment, platinum coins, bizarre option schemes involving federal property) and he steadfastly refused to use them. The GOP put a gun to the head of the economy, without picking up one of his own the President had almost no choice but to cave completely.
I’m going to be very interested in what happens to the Bush Tax Cuts next year. If I was the President, behind closed doors I would be guaranteeing a veto of any attempt to extend them.
Krugman’s never been a big Obama fan (and even less of an Obama fan fan.) Partly it arose from his fairly diehard support for Clinton’s candidacy, and partly it was his early recognition of Obama’s being a 1990s Republican with a nicer soul.
This is the thing. A minority of Republicans were handed a situation that they knew they could use, and they are crazy enough to bring down the entire economy if they don’t get their way. Short of sending in the SWAT team to take them down, how do you deal with these people?
So 2012 will decide things. We stave off disaster until then, even though the economy may take a hit anyway from reduced spending. Then if the Democrats lose the Senate and the White House the Republicans can dismantle all the progressive legislature going back to the New Deal.
It’s going to bring it down anyway. Job losses are going to go up due to less federal spending, killing the already anemic recovery. Consumer confidence is going to go down further. Employers won’t hire when things look that shaky. It’s a slower death, but you’re still just as dead.
Yep. I’m firmly in the liberal camp, but I don’t really see much reason to vote nationally if the “Democrats in power = GOP gets 80% of it’s agenda instead of 100%”
It took all of 2 years for the nation as a whole to move from rejecting a continuation of the policies of arguably one of the worst presidents in history to flipping back to wanting more of it.
jeffd
1774
This is a terrible attitude to have. If you care about having liberal policy outcomes the second absolutely worst thing you can do is not vote.
Yes, Democrats suck. With a few exceptions they’re milquetoast moderates rather than liberals. It’s still the best you’re going to get right now.
Conservatives in the GOP has gone through a decades-long process of pushing their caucus to the right. If liberals want to do the same thing, they need to:
- Elect lots of liberals to state and local office
- Then get those liberals elected to national office.
Something that’s notably not on that list:
Many liberals (myself included) thought that electing President Obama and a Democratic Congress would herald a new age of liberals. We were wrong. At this point our options are despair & complaining on the internet, or actually engaging in the hard work of pushing the caucus to the left.
Exactly. I think those huge tax cuts emboldened them, and they probably got started planning this current fiasco immediately afterwards.
The Democrats simply should not have bowed to that.
Or this. Or the filibusters from '08-'10, after the Republicans had made it quite clear that they would nuke the filibuster rule if the Democrats used it in the prior years.
I’d certainly still vote Democrat every chance I got in the United States, simply because it’s all there is left to do. But I’d puke in my mouth a little.
I’m stunned by this. I…how can…if you give into children throwing tantrums, they will just do it again and again. It worked. It actually worked!
I should have voted for McCain, and I would have too, if not for Palin.
People don’t actually want those policies. They just didn’t know what they were voting for when they made their choice on the basis of “well, we gave the Democrats a chance, they don’t seem to have fixed things… let’s try the Republicans again.”
jeffd
1780
Because the children have a gun held to the head of the US economy, and this President doesn’t have the temperament for some of the more exotic executive power grabs that would be necessary to take that gun away.
