Gun ban in DC lifted, Ignorance Ban remains in place

[CitizenBBN]

Apparently there is no constitutional right to having leaders that are worth a tinker's dam. While I primarily blame Obama on this one there's blame to go around at every level and both sides.

The "last ditch" meeting today at the White House entailed Obama presenting the same thing he presented last week and wanting an up or down vote from the House on just extending the tax cuts below $250K and unemployment benefits.

The reason he wants this is they are the popular parts but it also gives away leverage to get any kind of cuts in spending and gives him the tax increase he wants on everyone over $250K. So he wants the exact tax deal he asked for from the start of negotiations that also sets him up to get all the spending and debt ceiling increase he wants in January. The only concession he's even floated is going to $400K as the limit, but he still wants everything he started with in the deal. This is compromise?

He wants the up and down vote too b/c that way he can play the blame game and say the GOP voted against the middle class by not extending those tax cuts.

The GOP knows it and they want to play the blame game by having the Senate act first and vote for extending all the tax increases, locking in no increases on those above $250K. If the Senate can't pass it then the GOP claims the Democrats wouldn't extend the tax increases.

So they all get blame for playing the blame game, but given the lack of sophistication of the 30% of voters who decide elections it's easy to at least understand why they do it. Just like negative campaigning, they play these games b/c they work.

The GOP's blame is to not pass the tax extensions either without the $250K line or not, and pass it with the specification of no raising of the debt limit and dig in for the battle when it comes up in January. You end up on the voter's side on two issues.

The problem is enough House Republicans know the GOP is likely to blink at the debt ceiling vote, they did the last time, so they won't vote the tax increase. Can't blame them a bit for digging in on this vote.

I hate to use the word, but this President is an economic lunatic. His entire economic strategy is the most simplified, pure version of tax and spend this nation has ever seen, and by spend he means spend WAY more than he even wants in taxes.

The GOP leadership lacks any economic vision, or any vision at all, but Obama's vision is the economic end of this nation through both crippling debt and the destruction of the incentives that drive the economy.

So hi ho, hi ho, it's over the cliff we go....

(which given the alternatives is the best choice IMO. The leg is gangrenous, amputation is radical surgery but it beats letting the whole body die. )

[dan_bgblue]

He has no intent of negotiating. He thinks congress will blink and he will get his way, just like a spoiled brat that has weak kneed parents. I hope congress flips him over and paddles is smug arse.

[CitizenBBN]

He has no intent of negotiating. He thinks congress will blink and he will get his way, just like a spoiled brat that has weak kneed parents. I hope congress flips him over and paddles is smug arse.

Impossible to dispute IMO. The only offer he has made is to raise the cutoff to $400K from $250K and now he's even gone back today to wanting $250K.

The best part was that the deal call for committing to address these issues. Are you freaking kidding me? that's just insulting to ones intelligence. This mess is the result of us doing that the last time. That's just a joke.

As Doc said, why would he compromise? The fiscal cliff gives him a lot of what he wants and he knows most will blame Congress if we go over it which only helps him justify raising the debt limit "to offset the grave damage by the GOP's inability to come together in a bi-partisan way to address these serious issues."

Bookmark that quote. We'll see it in a month as a White House press statement.

[Doc]

He has no intent of negotiating. He thinks congress will blink and he will get his way, just like a spoiled brat that has weak kneed parents. I hope congress flips him over and paddles is smug arse.


His way is going off the cliff. It gives him what he wants. More tax money, even though he has claimed he only wants it on the rich that is a ploy IMO. He wants it from all so that he can then distribute it back to the people so their is a reliance on him and his party. He wants cuts in the military which the cliff gives. He wants no cuts in S.S., unemployment or welfare and there are none.

This was a gift laid in his lap months ago and the damn GOP was too stupid to see it. And now that it is "automatic", Obama and the left will lay it in the lap of the GOP despite the GOP has laid out several plan and the democrats none. Most folks believe its Boehner and his side that is forcing us over the cliff. The democrats say the other side have presented nothing yet its them that has sat on their hands.

[KeithKSR]

Obama, through his minion Harry Reid, has refused to actually negotiate. Obama has some fairly selective memory, as the House passed a budget some months back and Reid refused to either bring it before the Senate to vote on, or to pass a Senate version so that reconciliation could take place.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/12/30/sen_reid_to_gop_at_this_stage_were_not_able_to_mak e_a_counteroffer.html