69 percent of liberal Democrats support tax package

[Still a Democrat]

But put all four items together, and 69 percent of all Americans support the package. Large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike favor the agreement, which has drawn stiff opposition from some Democrats in the House. In the poll, 69 percent of liberal Democrats support the agreement, which Obama has called a framework for legislation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121302373.html?hpid=topnews

[BrklynLiberal]

1. This all sounds so familiar............. ..................oh yes!

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

* The Republicans out-message the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.

* The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.

* The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.

* The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.

* Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support - and elections - to the Republicans, because mainstream thought and language resides with the Republicans.

* Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging and move to the right.

* The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.

We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

<snip>

[Scurrilous]

2. Delete

..

[bbgrunt]

6. it is a necessary part of kabuki.

[yurbud]

7. Democrats at the top will not change this pattern because it unlocks the coffers of corporate money

for them, so our elections will increasingly be a choice between getting screwed and screweder.

[Scurrilous]

3. K & R

:thumbsup:

[gratuitous]

4. "A framework for legislation"

As the redoubtable Mr. Simon once wrote, "Who do you think you're foolin'?" This is no "framework"; this is a take-or-leave-it, no negotiation, drop dead if you don't support it ransom note. There's no framework here in the sense that the disparate parts of the proposal can be taken apart and voted on individually. There's only iron-clad links between unrelated items. Why is a one-year extension of unemployment benefits unpassable except by handing the wealthy another two years of artificially low taxes? Why can't those be separated and voted on individually? Why does an extension of low tax rates for income below $250,000 have to be bound to an extension of lower rates for income above $250,000? And how did social security and estate tax get involved anyway?

That's a whole lot of shit to swallow for that one morsel of alleged filet mignon.

[BzaDem]

5. Framework does not at all necessarily mean that its parts can be voted upon individually.

Framework usually (as I understand it) means that it is a description of the upcoming bill, not the actual legislative language.

In other words, if there are 3 levels of specificity:

1. We will leave all the rates the same, payroll tax holiday, unemployment, etc

2. The rates on the following 5 brackets will be as follows to this date. The IRS code will be modified to include...

3. Strike section 3, subparagraph 9, clause 4, sentence 2, word 5 of statute 103.2, and replace said word with "blah."

then my view of "Framework" is 1.

[gratuitous]

8. So if it's framework, we can toss pieces that don't fit, or adjust pieces that fit badly?

No, there's no "framework" here; it's a finished product to be used as a gibbet for what's left of the middle class.

[EFerrari]

9. 20% strong support, 49% somewhat support = misleading headline.

"A large majority backs the idea, but "strong support" registers at 20 percent, "somewhat support" at 49 percent."

[Angry Dragon]

10. BULL

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

11. "A slender 11 percent of those polled back all four of the deal's primary tax provisions..."

:rofl: