K and R this thread to insist the windfall profits tax stay in Obama's program

[Ken Burch]

This link says it's no longer mentioned on the Change.com website.

http://www.sunherald.com/454/story/987941.html

We can't let this be given away or we won't have a Democratic administration.

Without the windfall profits tax, President Obama won't have the resources to do anything progressive.

Defend the Obama Administration's ability to act. Defend our progressive mandate.

There's NO excuse to back down on the windfall profits tax. Without that, the whole thing is lost.

This is not a little thing, people. And it's not "whining" to say that no windfall profits tax would be an unacceptable betrayal.

Once that's gone, there's nothing progressive left among his existing promises.

There's never an excuse to move further right AFTER the election. That's only acceptable as a temporary measure during the campaign.

[Ken Burch]

1. Here's the message I just sent to the "Your Vision" link at Change.gov

If you share my belief that the Obama Administration would consign itself to failure if it committed to no windfall profits tax and other "moderate"(actually conservative) proposals of the sort that Mr. Summers is trying to impose.

"My vision includes President Obama having the necessary resources to be able to carry out the programs he has proposed. Therefore, I must express my deepest concerns that he may be backing away from the proposal to implement a windfall profits tax on oil. Combined with the idea of leaving the Bush tax cuts in place until 2010, this means that President Obama would have almost no funds to do anything and would thus be consigned to failure. I strongly urge President-elect Obama not to give into the corporate forces in this country who are demanding this sort of policy reversal because they want to see the Obama Administration fail."

To fight for the windfall profits tax is to fight, in loyalty and passion, in defense of the Obama Administration. Those who want it scrapped want President Obama to be consigned to conservatism and failure. Don't let them steal our people's victory.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Obama did not calculate a windfall profit tax in his budget.......

when it was done in October for Middle Class tax cuts....
and oil prices have fallen from $147 in July to under $50 this week.
A gallon of gas has fallen from over $4 to a little bit below $2.
The whole point of the windfall profit tax was to make Oil companies
have to pony up considering their record breaking profit coming out
of the pockets of Americans.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7947258

[Danger Mouse]

4. Clever move. And Obama can always put it right back in...

if the oil companies misbehave.

[w4rma]

5. It should be put back in anyway, for *when* they misbehave. (nt)

[Ken Burch]

7. And they still NEED to pony up. They shouldn't be just allowed to keep the price-gouging gains

of the summer, and if nothing else, nothing would be more appropriate than using the proceeds from such a tax to fund the auto company bailouts if those have to happen.

We have to draw the line somewhere. If we let THIS one go, we're saying "principle doesn't matter at all. It's enough that we have a president who calls himself a Democrat". We can't settle for that again. Settling for that was what ruined the Carter and Clinton years(and yes, Bill did get two terms in name, but he was governing as a Republican after 1994, refusing even to try to get a Democratic congressional majority in '96, so his second term was meaningless other than for bragging rights over nominal control of the White House).

[camera obscura]

3. I'll be leaving a message on change.gov for sure

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Kick. So I can find this later.

[Occam Bandage]

8. "Without that, the whole thing is lost."

That's just ridiculous. Obama is going to be engaging in record deficit spending no matter what. A windfall profits tax (that was designed when oil was twice as much per barrel as it is now) would have a negligible impact, if any.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Burch is going for broke tonight......

I don't think he can help it. :shrug:

[Ken Burch]

11. Progessives were promsied there'd be no further swings to the right at all

after the election. We had a right to expect that promise to be honored.

The campaign was conservative enough.

Why are you content with power in name only?

Without pressure from below, Obama WON'T be different than Bush.

It's only those of us in the progressive wing of the party that will be defending change in any real sense.

Why do you want this victory to get pissed down to nothing?

[Occam Bandage]

13. What? By whom? You're just makin' stuff up now.

[Ken Burch]

10. Are you going to unquestioning defend EVERY tack to the right?

If we bomb Pakistan(which will only result in the deaths of innocent bystanders and can't do anything to improve our own security)will you defend that?

If the Employee Free Choice Act wasn't approved this year(which would be the same as accepting that it would never be passed, since Democratic administrations are only progressive in the first two years)would you defend that?

If the Bush tax cuts were kept in place forever, would you defend that?

Is there ANY point at which you'd say "this far, and no further"?

Why does principle mean nothing to you?

Remember, centrism ISN'T change, since centrism can't be sustained.

[Occam Bandage]

12. Nope. In fact, I won't even defend one of them.

[Ken Burch]

14. Then what's your point? You know progressives aren't bashing Obama.

You know perfectly well that what we're doing is working to keep him from being boxed in at the get go. No administration that tacks to the center in the first two years ever gets to get more progressive later. And tacking to the center always means abandoning the party's base(the poor and the working class)and then losing because we've given them no real reason to keep voting for us. That's why we lost Congress in '94(on despair-driven abstentions, not on any actual increase in right-wing votes).

All we're saying is "don't repeat the mistake."

Why would you have a problem with that?

President-elect Obama himself is ok with us taking part in the discussion. He's never told us to "STFU" like you do.

Why can't you treat opposing views with respect?

[Occam Bandage]

15. I'll treat your views "with respect" when you start presenting them in a way

that is worthy of respect. The "working to keep him from being boxed in argument" is a sad, cynical one, in which you complain vociferously about things you know are trivial and unimportant, hoping that your endless intellectually-dishonest shrieking is rewarded with reflexive, non-merit-based moves in your political direction. It's a tactic of ideologically-bankrupt partisans, and is a cornerstone of the Endless Culture War strategy that Obama has denounced.

If you want people to treat your views like the views of an adult, perhaps you should consider adopting a political strategy that is a bit more sophisticated than a toddler's tantrum.

[Ken Burch]

16. Keeping Bush's tax cuts is trivial?

No windfall profits tax is trivial?

Keeping the war budget high is trivial?

Not prosecuting torturers is trivial?

Nothing but corporate types or non-progressive Dems in the cabinet is trivial?

Is anything NOT trivial to you?

Every policy annoucement and every appointment since the election has been a swing to the right. Nothing progressive has been announced at all. And at this point, he's announced virtually every policy that matters.

Will it be trivial if Gitmo is kept open?

Will it be trivial if he actually does ramp up the nuclear power program?

Is there ANY "this far and no farther" point, as you see it?

Why SHOULDN'T those in my wing of the party speak out and defend our principles?

You know that I'm right about progressive policies only happening in the FIRST two years of Democratic presidencies. Look at LBJ after 1967. Nothing. Look at Carter after 1979. Nothing. Look at Bill after 1994.

Those who speak out know how short time is and how quickly victory can be snatched away. Why doesn't the narrow window of opportunity concern you?

[Occam Bandage]

17. See, I ask you not to act like a child, and here we go.

You proceed to start talking about everything and anything but what we're actually discussing, whipping out every emotional cudgel you can get your hands on. The Democratic party is like a big family. If you want a seat at the grown-up table, learn to eat your carrots without getting your mashed potatoes on your face.

[BzaDem]

20. The idea that we lost in 94 only because of liberal apathy is about as silly as

the idea that the New Deal made the depression worse.

There are so many similarities. Aside from both being completely and obviously false, both amount to what is basically propaganda designed to take contradictions between history and one's political ideology and spin them in a way that is helpful to one's ideology. Yet both are taken as gospel by the ideological far right and ideological far left respectively.

This is aside from the point that even not taking into account accurate history, the idea is laughable on its face. You are basically saying that unless Obama moves to the left of the mainstream, progressives are going to withhold their votes so the people who take control of our country will become right of the mainstream. Not only would that not produce any short term benefits for the political far left (obviously), it doesn't even produce long term benefits. What happened after Nader allowed Bush to win? Did Democrats start cowering in fear of progressives and move swiftly leftward? Of course not. We nominated in 2004 a candidate who voted for the war, over the choice of many progressives. Yet somehow turnout increased massively from 2000 to 2004, with Nader's share of the vote cut in 10. The Democratic party knows that their base will eventually come back into the fold (after having a swift reminder of the tangible consequences of withholding their votes), and they know that a mainstream political party does not hold power if it governs out of the mainstream.

And before you accuse me of not sufficiently respecting your viewpoint, what I'm saying really has nothing to do with your viewpoint at all. It has to do with how you want to go about achieving your viewpoint. You are using a historical argument that is misguided (at best) to argue that progressives can "punish" Democrats who don't govern far enough left of the mainstream. I am going to point out that flawed reasoning whether or not I agree with your issue position in question.

As for the windfall profits tax, it isn't anywhere near as consequential as you make it out to be. Obama came up with his plan before the economic crisis exploded. Most economists (in fact, most liberal economists) know that the way to get out of such a crisis is to go deep into the red, and that raising taxes prolongs the downturn. FDR tried to raise taxes to balance the budget in 1937, and it reversed a 4 year recovery up to that point into another massive slide downward. FDR's deficit spending for the New Deal worked -- raising taxes did not. The time for raising taxes is after a recovery (to pay back the debt that was incurred during the downturn).

[Ken Burch]

18. Wrong. A windfall profits would go a long way towards minimizing the deficit

and protect our party from being labeled as "budget-busters" by the GOP. It would also send the message(and yes, messages do matter)that corporations can't get away with theft.

[Occam Bandage]

19. A short-term influx of cash does not have anything to do with the deficit.

One year's deficit is meaningless. What matters is long-term budget sustainability. Saying "a windfall tax would help minimize the deficit" is like claiming that finding a hundred-dollar bill on the ground makes up for the fact that your rent and utilities cost more than your income. No, it doesn't, it just makes your checkbook look a little bit better for that one month only.

[BzaDem]

21. Why do you keep arguing that we should minimize the deficit in these economic circumstances?

The way to get out of a deep recession is to essentially bust the budget. Trying to balance the budget by cutting spending or raising taxes is a step that slows an economic recovery. This is not disputed very much by most progressive economists.

[Ken Burch]

22. You're assuming that Summers won't force him to appease Wall Street.

Remember, its only Wall Street that Summers has ever given a damn about.

[Sebastian Doyle]

23. The windfall profits tax is just the beginning.

I want the price gouging of these oil bastards investigated, and every dollar they STOLE from the American people over the last 8 years returned. And that includes the treasonous Wall Street speculators. Which should be illegal in and of itself, given what they have done to this country.