David Broder: Verdict Withheld?

RCP ^ | David Broder

[conejo99]

The man is a partisan idiot, but I'm afraid he may be right. We republicans might view a very good election as a fundamental shift in the electorate. I'm afraid we will be wrong. Most of the country likes getting government benefits. If those benefits are cut (which we won't have all that much control over anyway) they might come out and vote in droves next time.
Cutting government must be done. What's the point of winning if we don't, but we shouldn't be shocked by the reaction.

[SoFloFreeper]

good ideas—though we also need the Senate to go along.

[SoFloFreeper]

Here is David Broder's December 2008 article on Obama in picture form:

"He is sooooo dreamy!"

[SoFloFreeper]

one step at a time.

i really don’t expect Obamacare to be repealed this year, but slowed down perhaps.

more fights come in 2012.

[ckilmer]

broder is defining what 50 seats and dem control of the senate means.

Cook is now calling for 70 seats in the house. and senate control. However, I think WV and CA will go republican and
put the senate in pubbie control.

so broder will have to spin again later next week.

[worst-case scenario]

The problem is that the the Dems can use the same tactics against the GOP majority in the House that the GOP used to stymie the Dem majority for these past two years. Did the Republican House members have to stand up in the well and pull a Jimmy Stewart-type filibuster?

Boehner and Cantor have already stated that there is going to be “no compromise” with the Dems. This could be two years of gridlock - which is perhaps what the public wants. But the surveys of American attitudes that have come out in the past week indicate that Americans are *sick* of gridlock. That’s why Congress has the lowest approval ratings ever recorded - 76% disapproval in most of the polls I’ve read this week.

If all the GOP does is more nothing, than they’ll be kicked out *again* in two years, especially if employment numbers improve.

Of course, if employment numbers continue to hold steady, all bets are off for every party. If the Tea Party hasn’t been able to get anything accomplished, it will be dumped as well. Remember that it was only a gleam in Santelli’s eye not too long ago. The next insurgency might be from the Left.

Why do I say that? The Census Bureau released hard statistics that income inequality reached all all-time recorded high in 2009. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/income-inequality-reached-high-in-2009/?scp=1&sq=income%20disparity&st=cse

Everybody except the wealthiest 2% lost ground in the decade between 2000 and 2010. That’s the sort of thing that can be the basis of a movement - at least one for a change in tax structure, if not something more punitive.

Americans don’t mind other people getting richer than Croesus. They dream about it. But they certainly resent some people getting richer than Croesus at *their* expense, through fraud, jobbing the market, and using inside connections that rip off the middle class (like mortgage fraud.)

[kevao]

But the surveys of American attitudes that have come out in the past week indicate that Americans are *sick* of gridlock.

We have gridlock right now? Who would have guessed, what with all the bailouts, stimulus, Obamacare, financial reform....

[worst-case scenario]

Well,the bank bailout was passed before Obama. The other bills you list were definitiely chnaged by a powerful GOP unbreakable resistance. In the Senate, that will be stronger than ever, even if they don’t take total control.

Don’t forget that there have been [plenty of other bills that never even made out out pf Committee. This term, Senate confirmation of Presidential appointees has been historically delayed. That’s why Warren and Becker had to be Provisional and and Recess Appointments, for instance.

Republicans in this Congressional term have been able to put the brakes on, if not stop, much of the Obama agenda. If any party could have claimed a “mandate from the American people” over the last term, it was the Democrats. Presidency, Senate AND House? “Americans LOVE us!” they claimed.

It was only GOP unity and refusal to co-operate that has put the halt to most of what they wanted to do.

Don’t sell the minority party’s strength short in this situation. After all, imagine what might have happened if the GOP hadn’t been so determined in 2008.

There is PLENTY that the GOP has managed to stop Obama frpm doing. Remember the original size of the Stimulus Package, back in Jan 2009? The GP{ cut it down by

[Kellis91789]

“Everybody except the wealthiest 2% lost ground in the decade between 2000 and 2010. That’s the sort of thing that can be the basis of a movement - at least one for a change in tax structure, if not something more punitive.”

So it’s our job to inform people that only free markets can change that. Untaxing the low income worker just means they can get by on less income. Low income earners have traded their political support for nothing. They’ve given up their freedom but get nothing more in after-tax spending power than if they had held out for higher wages and paid their fair share of taxes. The resentment of an employer knowing his employees get off scottfree while the government comes after him with a pitchfork should not be underestimated. That resentment is expressed in lower wages and higher prices to customers, but it can never be alleviated as long as the worker screams that it’s good for the government to take 50% of what the employer earns as long as they leave the worker alone.

[worst-case scenario]

The Supreme Court has ruled that moeny equals political speech and thus cannot be curtailed; thus, Citizens United. This means that those eraning the most money - the employer - can have a louder voice than those earning less - the employed.

That goes a long way towards teaching the low income earners that it is to *their* advantage to have the higher incomes keep as much money as they can, rather than forcing them to give more tax money to support government in general.

[Kellis91789]

I don’t think you got my point. People talk about “class warfare” and usually mean there is some sort of anger on the part of the low-earner towards the high-earner, the CEO, the “boss”, basically. I think people don’t talk enough about the reverse — the anger on the part of the high-earner towards his employee whenever he thinks about how that worker gets off without paying taxes while he himself is sucked dry. The result is that low earners end up with suppressed wages. The anger of the low earner has gotten them nothing.

If we had a flat tax, the resentment on the part of the “boss” would disappear. The low earner would end up with a higher wage but the same after-tax income and buying power. The difference is that he’d finally have some skin in the game and concern for what government costs. The happiness quotient would be higher all around, with the boss no longer feeling like the low earner was just a tax moocher, and the low earner feeling like he got a raise.

[Kellis91789]

“That goes a long way towards teaching the low income earners that it is to *their* advantage to have the higher incomes keep as much money as they can, rather than forcing them to give more tax money to support government in general.”

If you mean the low earner realizes that high earners would invest less money in politics if they weren’t taxed so heavily, then I agree that would be insightful of them. More insightful than I give them credit for. I don’t think they understand taxes and economics well enough to get past their envy and covetousness. They incorrectly think they can somehow punish the high earner with high taxes. They don’t understand that those are the same people with the power to raise prices for products they buy and cut wages for workers like them.