Obama risks repeating his first-term mistake
It looks as if the White House is trying to repeat its mistake all over again. For the past 18 months, Obama has insisted a “balanced approach” is necessary to deal with trillion dollar deficits. That was shorthand for raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers in exchange for meaningful spending cuts and other reforms. Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner agreed to raising taxes for the wealthy, albeit by closing out exemptions for the well-to-do. But by late last week, some Republicans were softening on higher rates as well.
That was until the GOP learned Obama is unable to take yes for an answer. On Friday, via an offer made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama redefined “balanced approach” to mean big tax rate hikes on the top 2% and even more spending. If that’s not a big enough thumb in the eye, he’s also demanding Congress permanently empower him to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. As moderate columnist David Brooks noted, Obama’s greediness pushed the GOP away from compromise and back into war footing. It’s like the stimulus all over again.
Even if Obama wins this fight (and he might), he will pay the price of another four years of acrimony, not to mention bad policy. Given that rumors of Obama’s desire for bipartisanship have always been exaggerated, he might be fine with that.
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Mistake?
He won re-election.
portlandon on December 4, 2012 at 3:06 PM
It seems to be a winning formula if elections are any indication.
rw on December 4, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Ha!! His “desire for bipartisanship” is, and always has been, non-existant.
Bitter Clinger on December 4, 2012 at 3:09 PM
America repeated their mistake of giving him a first term. So…. He’s gonna keep being himself.
dczombie on December 4, 2012 at 3:10 PM
Some mistake. WTF?
jr.ewing.78 on December 4, 2012 at 3:11 PM
Republicans and conservative pundits keep making the mistake in thinking that Obama gives two craps about spending reductions.
Joey24007 on December 4, 2012 at 3:12 PM
Pay what price? How? He can do pretty much whatever he wants.
Dongemaharu on December 4, 2012 at 3:12 PM
Not only that, he seized control of health care, raised taxes beyond Clinton rates for those still paying taxes, and briefly succeeded in taking over half the country off the income tax rolls.
Steve Eggleston on December 4, 2012 at 3:13 PM
Does that mean he’ll get a third term, Jonah???
Rixon on December 4, 2012 at 3:14 PM
Does that mean we get 4 more years of blaming Bush?
JPeterman on December 4, 2012 at 3:17 PM
bho will do as he did the first four, do the eo thing, ignore dc, and the courts. Afterall, ‘I won’ makes everything A-OK in that worthless forked tongue snake thinking! And if that doesn’t work, get on AF1 and daily campaign again with totus and rolled up shirt sleeves!
L
letget on December 4, 2012 at 3:17 PM
His followers couldn’t care less. They will cover and allow for him NO MATTER WHAT. I’ve often said if Obama ate an aborted puppy on the front steps of the White House the media would never report it and his followers wouldn’t bat an eye if they did..
HotAirian on December 4, 2012 at 3:17 PM
And this is a “mistake” exactly how? If you think that Obama actually wants America to recover and succeed then you might see this as an error. But if you understand that Obama has ZERO interest in a prosperous capitalist America then this makes no difference. The fast America collapses the sooner he gets his long sought goal of a totalitarian socialist state.
HE. DOES. NOT. WANT. AMERICA. TO. SURVIVE.
clippermiami on December 4, 2012 at 3:17 PM
By Obama’s own words he has held Republicans in contempt since the days when Reagan was President, but the media sold him as some kind of pragmatic, bipartisan unifier. Obama hates Republicans. He hates their ideals. Always has.
OxyCon on December 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM
People are making a fundamental mistake in their assessment of Oscumbag.
They assume that he want prosperity for this country. He doesn’t. He wants to impoverish us.
single stack on December 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM
Absolutely. Obama is winning/has won.
Why do these pundits think he has to change his strategy?
portlandon on December 4, 2012 at 3:19 PM
biggest mistake made since day one by conservatives and Republicans is believing that they were dealing with some traditional centrist Democrat.
A little bit of study into Obama’s background and political views would have remedied that.
But people trying to warn of what Obama is really all about were called “extremists” and “nutjobs.”
Obama doesn’t care about traditional American politics.
Joey24007 on December 4, 2012 at 3:24 PM
What price would that be? He’s not running for re-election and last i checked R’s didn’t win the White House or the Senate and lost seats in the House last election. Sounds like his “mistakes” in his first term worked out pretty well for him and D’s.
clearbluesky on December 4, 2012 at 3:24 PM
Uh, obama is now free to do whatever he wants, and complete his mission of destroying the United States – he is the greatest enemy our nation has ever faced.
Pork-Chop on December 4, 2012 at 3:24 PM
In light of the results, how was it a mistake?
I look down the “Headlines” here and I see a Washington Post Article that tells us that, according to polls,voters will blame the GOP if the US goes over the non-existent “fiscal cliff”.
It doesn’t look as though he is making mistakes…he is following the maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
What a disaster.
Blaise on December 4, 2012 at 3:26 PM
He’s a Dem. Repeating the same mistake is a feature, not a bug.
Christien on December 4, 2012 at 3:28 PM
I wonder if bho tries to pull a stunt as morsi did and take control of the US, would the citizens here do as those in egypt did today, in dc? If so, would the citizens be fired on and killed? One has to ask.
Me thinks bho is/has not understood what a huge number of American’s hold dear, our Republic and freedom?
I am in no way suggesting, but when the citizens get enough, things get to a point?
L
letget on December 4, 2012 at 3:29 PM
Just so.
Nor does he care for traditional Americans
Jabberwock on December 4, 2012 at 3:29 PM
I think we are in for a generation or more of tyrants.Truly.
djl130 on December 4, 2012 at 3:29 PM
Like he cares.
Good Lt on December 4, 2012 at 3:30 PM
Not trying, Jonah. They can’t help it.
If liberals had the ability to learn from history, well, they wouldn’t be liberals, now would they?
mintycrys on December 4, 2012 at 3:31 PM
Obamasite clearly has objectives:
1. Destroy the economy and blame it on Republicans
2. Continue to run astronomical deficits to keep the welfare rolls full of future Obamasite supporters
3. When the whole thing comes crashing down Obamasite will promise all those welfare recipients more if they will just support him through the hard times and hard times will be defined as rioting in the streets.
Yeah, what has he got to lose? He knows what the outcome is going to be and he is planning for exactly what he needs and he doesn’t care about our country.
rsherwd65 on December 4, 2012 at 3:32 PM
hes like the Terminator in that he doesn’t stop ever and he doesn’t care about rules. He has one goal: to fundamentally change America.
only useful idiots see otherwise.
Joey24007 on December 4, 2012 at 3:34 PM
I, and I bet most here, would agree with your assessment, so I don’t understand why it’s so taboo to follow this to its logical conclusion. The idea that PR wants to join the union is either met with intrigue or indifference, but the idea of some states checking out is met with outrage and incredulity. Why? In all the things that matter in life, what do we have in common with these people anymore?
The Count on December 4, 2012 at 3:36 PM
bho is worse than wilson, fdr, and carter combined. NO president has been as evil and horrible as bho if you look at those I mentioned?
L
letget on December 4, 2012 at 3:43 PM
No doubt. My thoughts exactly.
beatcanvas on December 4, 2012 at 3:45 PM
You simply can not have enough 5.56 at this point.
Washington Nearsider on December 4, 2012 at 3:48 PM
So? Obama thrives on acrimony. He creates it everywhere he goes.
The Rogue Tomato on December 4, 2012 at 4:12 PM
The land deserves him and his destruction, in full.
Schadenfreude on December 4, 2012 at 4:18 PM
Some short memory on here
Immediately after the 2008 landslide, Obama had carte blanche to push through whatever he wanted
We were helpless to prevent tax hikes, union card check, cap and trade, amnesty, a stronger Obamacare with a dreaded public option,etc
Since he is so clueless and such an awful negotiator (having never had a real job before), he overplayed his hand and botched the stimulus and Obamacare so badly, that he got none of the socialist wish list above for the rest of his term
He will do the same here– he’ll get shallacked and possibly lose the Senate in 2014
He’ll poison the well and be absolutely helpless to pass any kind of meaningful amnesty (big on their wish list now) or anything else
He’ll essentially just get another 4 years of hanging out with celebreties and going on taxpayer funded vacations, which is just fine with me at this point
You guys forget how miserable things looked at the start of 2009– only his complete legislative incompetence kept the socialists from a once in a generation chance to push through their whole dream agenda with a brief senate supermajority
thurman on December 4, 2012 at 4:46 PM
Obama has no interest in bipartisanship and never has. He has no interest in negotiating or compromise. He didn’t like having to do it in his own party to get the votes for Obamacare.
I doubt he wants to be in the same room with Republicans any more than necessary. He clearly does not like Republicans. Seems obvious he has little but contempt for most of them. His ideal model Republican is Ray LaHood — a pet lapdog RINO from Illinois he appointed his transportation secretary. In Illinois such Republicans are window dressing, there to maintain the illusion the state is not under one party rule, and to subvert the state GOP. Some are simply Dems masquerading as Republicans.
farsighted on December 4, 2012 at 5:17 PM
Seems true.
Obama does not want to cut spending at all. That should be obvious by now.
His demand to tax the “wealthy” more is nothing but a punative class warfare measure to “stick it to the man”. It will do little to nothing to reduce the deficit for several reasons: 1) it won’t raise much more than half the projected revenue for a variety of reasons; 2) the increased rates on income, on dividends, and on capital gains will have some negative impact on investment, which in turn will negatively impact economic growth in the private sector; 3) Obamacare taxes and costs are about to kick in, further negatively impacting investment and growth in the private sector; 4) 1, 2, and 3 may negatively impact the economy enough to drive us into a second recession that will reduce tax revenue from all other sources, that is from sources other than the “wealthy”.
farsighted on December 4, 2012 at 5:32 PM
Thanks for that trip down memory lane.
Most people have no idea how important Cap&Trade was to the first-term Obama agenda, and how much he lost when it blew up in his face. That was going to be the primary financing mechanism for Obamacare, and without that $600 billion Pelosi and Reid had to scarmble and fudge numbers to make the bill come out revenue neutral so they could pass it via reconciliation. It was also going to be the big payoff for Obama’s big donors, and instead they had to use the Stimulus money to dole out the green-energy loans which also blew up in their faces.
Go back and read the first Obama budget message from March 2009. It reads like the Communist Manifesto, it is an orgy of class-warfare rhetoric, bitter partisanship (it for all intents and purposes labled the Bush Administration Unamerican) and calls for massive new spending programs and regulatory restrictions on everything.
Republican unity prevented a crap-ton of bad stuff from happening in Obama’s first term. It drives me crazy that so many people can’t understand that. If we continue to stick together, Obama loses. His only shot at recreating a governing majority to ram through the rest of his socalist aganeda is to split the GOP and hope there are dozens of primaries and disgruntled Republicans stay home in 2014.
rockmom on December 4, 2012 at 5:35 PM
A ray of sunshine through the dark and overcast political skies.
The incompetent vain Boy King doesn’t know how get along well enough with political opposition to govern. He doesn’t know how to get along at all. He hasn’t learned a thing in four years. He only knows how to play dictator.
farsighted on December 4, 2012 at 5:43 PM
7.62, either…
affenhauer on December 4, 2012 at 5:52 PM
Yes, his first-term mistake. It took him years of dedicated effort (by the media, of course) to recover from how badly he over-reached in the beginning of his first term. And even then, he never recovered his earlier popularity and influence. And he’s probably going to do it all over again.
This is the one real positive about Obama. He is such a radical that he invariably throws away what he could easily have had.
I predict he will over-reach again. That’s actually good news for the whole country.
tom on December 4, 2012 at 6:05 PM