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Politics Week of 9/26

  • Ineffectual On Middle Class Tax Cut
  • How Not To Motivate The Democratic Base
    Note comment from reader JH above.
    John Boehner, Republican Leader in the House, gave the Democrats a gift two weeks ago when he said he would vote to extend tax cuts for the middle class (the first $200,000 of income for all singles and the first $250,000 of income for all couples). But many of his fellow Republican deficit hawks want to borrow $700B so they can give the money away to people with more than $250,000 of income in a  year. The Democrats in the House and Senate have the ability to put a bill on the floor extending the middle class tax cuts but the Republicans threatened to oppose the measure unless their rich friends got a tax break also. So what did Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D. - Cal. 8th) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) do? As of September 24, it looks like they folded. In the House, the Democrats could have supported the middle class and forced the Republicans either to extend the cuts for the first $250,000 of income for all Americans or to vote against a middle class tax cut (protecting 98% of all voters) five weeks before the election. In the Senate, the Democrats could have forced the Republicans either to support the same middle class protection or to stand on national television for a few days and filibuster against 98% of the people five weeks before the election. In either house, any Democrat who did not want to vote for the legislation could have been absent or voted "present." So Nancy and Harry punted; one wonders which NFL team will sign them.
  • Hippie Punching
    Or, how not to win friends and influence people.
    Obama may face fundraising problems if he seeks re-election in 2012. For the 2008 campaign, Obama raised and spent about $700B. His press secretary Robert Gibbs thinks most of his supporters should be drug tested. At $100 a test for the 13 million people who gave their e-mail addresses to his campaign, Obama and Gibbs will need about $1.3B just for the drug tests which means for the whole campaign Obama will need over $2B or about 3 times what he raised and spent for 2008. 
  • Bush and Republicans Lied About Effect Of Tax Cuts Which Preceded Reduced Income