They are lying about the President's position on

[malaise]

the extension of tax cuts for the rich. Rethug talking points and spin - wake up Dems.

[Imagevision]

1. Huffington Post would disagree with you - check out the link, you decide...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/white-house-gives-in-on-bush-tax-cuts_n_781992.html

[no_hypocrisy]

2. It's like Rahm never left . . . . .

[Hawkeye-X]

4. Guess you didn't look at LBN

That position was reversed last night.

[bigtree]

7. Axelrod came out today and pointed out that article is bullshit

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-11/obama-would-back-extending-tax-cut-for-rich-axelrod-tells-huffington-post.html

[Luminous Animal]

19. Axelrod did not deny a temporary extention... any extension of the cuts is bullshit.

[EFerrari]

23. No, he didn't. He said there was nothing new in it.

Which is technically correct since the cave in was already out there in the press from about a week ago, iirc.

[Luminous Animal]

24. Apparently, 1 week old is old news.

Why hasn't anyone asked Axelrod or Obama what, exactly, are they willing to compromise? What is on the table?

[SargeUNN]

15. HP is just a sensationalist website and not reliable

I have seen stories that were wrong, one I know first hand is wrong, and yet they refuse to admit it or quit quoting it. I can't trust HP without more back-up sources due to this. I wouldn't consider them a valid source too much now days.

[Roma]

16. Can you point me to a website that is even 90% reliable and

never a bit over the top?

I need a place to get the real news.

[SargeUNN]

20. What is best to me is

get 3 or more sources that don't base their report on each other. I try to hold judgement on a story until I get enough proof it is valid. If I have an inside source I use it to help see what is most likely true. It calls for restraint but it is far better than jumping on something then feeling bad because I was mislead.

[coti]

28. It's very simple: Obama is saying two things- that he wants to pass the middle-class cuts, and not

make the top 2% cuts PERMANENT.

That's it. That's what they said a week ago, that's what they're saying now.

That's what Huffington based their article on.

If you disagree, what is the inference that should be made from those two statements?

[EFerrari]

31. You don't have to trust any outlet. Look at Axelrod's words.

Shooting the messenger is unnecessary and beside the point.

[TheWraith]

25. Huffington Post is full of shit.

Lately they've been nothing but "gotcha" spin, to the point where they're getting as bad as Politico in terms of lying about what actually happened.

[katandmoon]

3. No, just being prescient. Obama will cave to Repugs, like he always does.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Individualist]

14. +1

[bigtree]

18. I can see you belong to the bullpuckey group

[katandmoon]

39. I belong to the group that sees Obama for the Repug cave-in that he is.

[Fruittree]

42. Define always...and...

define your alternative scenarios.

[bigtree]

6. hey, as long as it hyper-criticizes the President and our party

. . . it's welcome here.

[Radical Activist]

8. The professional pundits have done a great job of misleading and disorganizing the real left.

It's part of their job. I'm amazed people keep falling for it.

[bigtree]

9. folks fall all over themselves to breathless relay the tripe they're being fed

It's got to be a hoot for the folks who work it up and introduce it into our discussions here and elsewhere. Democratic critics of the WH and our party have made it rather easy for them to introduce their propaganda and spread it around like truth.

[malaise]

12. Amazed is not the word

They've been spinning this before they finished counting ballots last week.

[Radical Activist]

40. It has been the same song and dance since we were told to believe

that every cabinet appointment was proof of something evil, even though Obama said he would appoint cabinet members with divergent viewpoints.

[EFerrari]

26. Professionals like Axelrod? I don't think too many people are falling for it. n/t

[Little Star]

10. Can you please state what you believe to be the Presidents position?

[bigtree]

13. malaise can answer, I'm sure, but why don't you just read it for yourself

“We believe that it is imperative to extend tax cuts for the middle class,” David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, said in an e-mailed statement. Referring to top earners, He said, “We don’t believe that we can afford to borrow another $700 billion in the next decade” to continue the tax cuts for “the top two percent.”

Axelrod sent the statement after the Huffington Post reported this morning that he suggested in an interview the White House would accept an across-the-board extension of tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Axelrod said in the Huffington Post interview that the president doesn’t want to “trade away security for the middle class” to continue making the point that the country can’t afford indefinitely extending tax cuts for high-income Americans, defined by Obama as individuals making more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-11/obama-would-back-extending-tax-cut-for-rich-axelrod-tells-huffington-post.html


and, in his radio address last weekend: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/06/weekly-address-president-obama-calls-compromise-and-explains-his-priorit


PRESIDENT:

___ Here’s why this lame duck session is so important. Early in the last decade, President Bush and Congress enacted a series of tax cuts that were designed to expire at the end of this year.

What that means is, if Congress doesn’t act by New Year’s Eve, middle-class families will see their taxes go up starting on New Year’s Day.

But the last thing we should do is raise taxes on middle-class families. For the past decade, they saw their costs rise, their incomes fall, and too many jobs go overseas. They’re the ones bearing the brunt of the recession. They’re the ones having trouble making ends meet. They are the ones who need relief right now.

So something’s got to be done. And I believe there’s room for us to compromise and get it done together.

Let’s start where we agree. All of us want certainty for middle-class Americans. None of us want them to wake up on January 1st with a higher tax bill. That’s why I believe we should permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for all families making less than $250,000 a year. That’s 98 percent of the American people.

We also agree on the need to start cutting spending and bringing down our deficit. That’s going to require everyone to make some tough choices. In fact, if Congress were to implement my proposal to freeze non-security discretionary spending for three years, it would bring this spending down to its lowest level as share of the economy in 50 years.

But at a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children.

I recognize that both parties are going to have to work together and compromise to get something done here. But I want to make my priorities clear from the start. One: middle class families need permanent tax relief. And two: I believe we can’t afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/06/weekly-address-president-obama-calls-compromise-and-explains-his-priorit

[Luminous Animal]

22. Neither Axelrod nor Obama state definitively that this admin is averse to compromising

on extending the tax cut for the top 2%. Both only state that they are unwilling to permanently extend the tax cut.

[bigtree]

30. that's some slippery spin there

. . . falling all over yourself to justify your own dissembling criticisms. More pathetic whining from constant critics of this President and party; it would be sad, if it wasn't so insidiously annoying.

[frylock]

35. why don't you go on record, right here and now, that tax cuts for the upper 2% will not be extended

temporarily or otherwise. here's your big chance, then we can refer back to this thread and see if you were correct. better still, start your own thread stating as much. i'll be front and center to apologize if they don't extend those tax cuts for the upper 2%. thanks in advance.

[malaise]

33. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Spin is more fun to some folks

[glinda]

11. this is the result of not having any major outlets in the media now

[TheKentuckian]

21. The fruit of refusing to rescind them, be open to extending them temporarily to some degree, and

fucking pandering to the vanity of the "middle class" when we need to permanently lower the bottom bracket to 10% (or lower), let the rest expire, and increase taxes progressively by creating a couple or three new brackets and increasing permanently no lower than Clinton levels on the top 2%.

We need to take these trillions and invest them into our people and infrastructure rather than to hold on to a few hundred dollars over the course of a year.

[DainBramaged]

17. Unfortunately, we are REACTING yet again to Puke talking points

[girl gone mad]

27. All the President has to do..

is state very clearly that extending tax cuts to the richest 2% is fiscally irresponsible.

It doesn't seem that complicated to me.

[jeff47]

29. Can you really not see where this is going?

The President's current negotiating position is to extend the top 2% tax cuts for 2 years...just in time for it to be an issue in the next election. Which means they will be made permanent at that time, or extended for another 2 years. Repeat extension as necessary.

[bigtree]

32. with that standard, you can make up just about anything about his position

Why stop there? And critics of this administration complain about integrity . . .

[jeff47]

34. What standard?

The WH has been very explicit that they will not support extending those tax cuts permanently.

The WH has been very explicit in stating that a 'temporary' 2 year extension is an acceptable compromise to get the rest of the tax cuts extended permanently.

So what "standard" am I supposedly holding the WH to? The "standard" of believing the words they are actually saying?

[flying rabbit]

36. We will see n/t

[apocalypsehow]

37. Yep - much of the anti-Obama stuff floating out & about fits that bill precisely.

Rec. :thumbsup:

[Overseas]

38. Yes I do believe that is being tossed around to wear me down.

At first I believed hints that such concessions had been made and sunk lower in my depression. Easy to believe because there had been so many concessions to Republican cruelty so far-- so I'm glad that particular piece of disinformation was quickly addressed and rebutted.

I sincerely hope what I heard about Pelosi making sure to get Republicans on the record about denying the middle class tax cut extensions is true. I would like to see the tax cuts separated.

I hope all of our Democratic legislators fight for the 95% Obama Tax Cut and oppose the Top 2% Bush Tax Cut.

I really appreciated that Obama Tax Cut that 95% of us got.

Let the Greedy GOP defend the Warren Buffet Tax Cut that he and his fellow mega-millionaires really don't need. They did quite well during the Clinton era. Yet the Republican Dubya felt compelled to take that surplus Clinton gave him and turn it into a deficit. I remember his almost sarcastic declaration that he was a man of principle and "Gee, if the government has a surplus, well doggone it, that's your money so I'm gonna give it back!"

Instead of saying, "Dang, I could spiff up our infrastructure and make us the most smoothly running nation on earth, and create jobs, and put millions of people to work, and catch up with the international green technology market!" But no. He was a Greedy Obstructionist Privatizer. GOP. Couldn't possibly apply the surplus to our national infrastructure-- that would have created more Government Jobs. Yikes. Government jobs. Of the people. So W let our public infrastructure crumble while starting an expensive war of choice to further wreck our shared economy in spite of enriching many war profiteers.

Get those self-proclaimed "deficit hawks" to defend their position on extending the Megamillionaires' tax cut. Just how many jobs did those tax cuts create in their first 5 years of implementation? And how many jobs were lost? I seem to remember millions of lost jobs during the destructive Dubya Era.

Yes please, let us once again get the GOP on the record about tax policy-- and talk about it. Publicize their priorities versus ours. Yes please, tell the truth about the GOP. Let us look at what they really value with their spending. Will millions of Americans being evicted from their homes, or bankrupted by medical expenses, or killed on crumbling bridges, be less important than another $300 million for Warren Buffet? Let's ask him about how important infrastructure and national health security and poverty reduction programs(like a strong public education system), are to running a successful business and lifting all boats, including those of your customers.

So, the GOP has been engaging in Offense-- and Disheartening is part of it.

Thanks for the heads-up to be on the lookout for future distortions.

[SidDithers]

41. K&R...nt

Sid

[spanone]

43. if they don't wake up soon... game over