Hey, Obama shouldn’t compromise on the fiscal cliff

This time, nothing very bad will happen to the economy if agreement isn’t reached until a few weeks or even a few months into 2013.

Nothing very worse?

The party line for Krugman/the Dems is still “when the economy gets better.” I wonder, as a theoretical exercise, how bad it would have to get for them to admit they were wrong.

As the risk of severe economic damage grew, Republicans would face intense pressure to cut a deal after all.

Yeah, no pressure on Obama when the newspapers start filling up with the phrase “the Obama recession.”

Krugman has a point though, unintentionally of course. Why give Obama an excuse? Let him write the bill (outside of allowing programs that can’t be rolled back). Run a press release insisting that the deal is taking longer than expected because we want Obama to go through every word to make sure the fiscal plan is exactly what he wants, then send 30 Republicans across the aisle to pass it. (Insist full Dem support as a condition).

As we saw 4 years ago when the Dems were daring Republicans to refuse to sign on to the new popular president’s payoffs, and Republicans to a man took the dare, conservatives don’t oppose Obama’s agenda for political reasons. They oppose his agenda because it’s objectively bad and deleterious and isn’t going to work.

Obviously, the public isn’t taking our word for that any more. Give them H L Mencken democracy: what they want, good and hard.

HitNRun on November 9, 2012 at 4:05 PM

I used to think this would work. Then Obama got re-elected on economic statistics that would have had a Republican flayed alive and dragged across the salt flats behind wild horses.

Half of those in the exit polls still blamed Bush for our current economy.

That’s true. But the other side of that is that, as bad as the economy has been, we’ve been exaggerating comparing it to the Carter years.

The best thing at this point is to remove the ambiguity. Let what happens happens, and let Obama have what he wants on any field that we can easily repeal later. Do I really want to watch Boehner blubber and flop and reel for six or twelve months before he probably caves anyway? Do we really need to hear the nightly blasting

We stood our ground in 2011 and refused to accept tax hikes because we assumed, quite reasonably, that help was on the way. We know now that that’s not the case. Help is not on the way. It won’t be coming until more of the public sees that the result of liberal economics. Nobody under 40 remembers the 1970s. We need to actually see it, not scroll past a link that an old fart relative posted on Facebook about something Rush Limbaugh said.

We’ve been hearing about “the Bush tax cuts” for 10 years. Let Barack Obama be the man who repealed the Bush tax cuts. Let the economy be the result of Barack Obama’s policies, not “partisan bickering” and “Republican refusal.”

HitNRun on November 9, 2012 at 4:56 PM