A Lame and Spineless Duck?

[babylonsister]

Ouch! I hope the admin is reading this stuff.


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_lame_and_spineless_duck_20101114/

A Lame and Spineless Duck?
Posted on Nov 14, 2010

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.


The lame-duck session of Congress that kicks off this week will test whether Democrats have spines made of Play-Doh, and whether President Obama has decided to pretend that capitulation is conciliation.

Congress faces an enormous amount of unfinished business, largely because of successful GOP obstruction tactics during the regular session. Republican senators who declare themselves moderate helped block action on important bills, objecting either to provisions they didn’t like or to Democratic procedural maneuvers.

snip//

An extension of unemployment insurance is set to expire at the end of this month, at a moment when the unemployment rate is 9.6 percent. Will Congress just go home without a thought to what the lives of these Americans will be like during the coming holidays?

Which brings up the biggest scandal of all: Imagine a Congress still controlled by Democrats passing an extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires but leaving the unemployed out in the cold. If this happens, laugh out loud the next time a Democrat claims to be on the side of working people.

Yet administration officials have been talking about capitulating to the Republicans on the millionaire tax cuts without a word about the jobless, or even about extending the president’s own tax cuts geared toward the non-privileged. And some Democratic senators just don’t want to be bothered with a long lame-duck session. They want to take care of the wealthy and not do much more.

If the president caves in on the tax cuts, then his speeches of the last few months were just empty talk. He’ll be lending his hand to those who would drive the car right back into that ditch he loved to talk about. And if Democrats don’t fight to turn the lame-duck session into a moment of action, they will end a Congress of remarkable achievement not with a bang, but with a craven whimper.

[MBS]

1. write to the White House NOW!

I just did. There's even a subject-heading category for "taxes"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/

I hadn't seen Dionne's column yet, but wrote with similar thoughts in mind. I urged them not to cave on ending tax cuts for the rich. . told them it was (a) bad economics (b) bad politics and (c) to the extent that the Repubs would "fund" those tax cuts by drastic cuts to infrastructure rebuilding, social services, etc, which would hurt everyone, but especially the poor and unemployed: just plain wrong.

[Mass]

2. I'm not surprised that Dionne would think so. What I hear does not give me confidence at all.

[babylonsister]

3. I read your Krugman post, Mass. Sigh. I don't know what

to think. The civility exhibited so far at first made me proud; now I also wish more fight would be shown. Maybe it will; we'll find out soon.

[Mass]

6. Thanks, I am a little bit dispirited when I see Dems confusing civility and

giving up.

I dislike the very uncivil discussions on the right, but I think you can stand for your ideas while staying civil (not calling people evil or dumb because you disagree with them).

[flpoljunkie]

4. Dems who vote 'on the side of working people' are becoming fewer and fewer.

That's the problem with our party--too many who are not in the 'Democratic wing' of the Democratic party, but in the corporate/DLC/New Democrat wings.

We need public financing of their campaigns so members of Congress do not need to spend all their time raising money from corporate lobbyists to run tv ads and will be free to vote in the public interest and not for the special interests who bankroll their campaigns.

http://fairelectionsnow.org

[BeyondGeography]

5. When EJ Dionne is calling you a wimp you know things are getting out of hand

Obama will be primaried if he doesn't dig in against the same people who have treated him like shit, while hurting the country, since Day 1 of his presidency. I can't think of any issue more appropriate to take stand on than the BUSH tax cuts. They represent everything that's cynical and reprehensible about Republican ideology.