He also didn't win by having the debt ceiling raised until after the election - because of the wrangling, based in large part on the Obozo's demand for tax increases, now the debt and deficit are imprinted on the nation's mind, and, even if it's not debated again, people know the parties' positions.
“I don’t think we got everything we claim we did, but I do think this whole debate would have been over weeks ago if the Obozo hadn’t demanded tax increases. So he lost big on that.”
The GOP “caved” because it was not focused on the main thing that Obama wanted and needed.
One way or another, either by new taxes OR “debt ceiling” increases, the core thing Obama wanted and needed was to be able to keep spending essentially as he has been spending, WITHOUT actual Congressional, detailed, Executive budget negotiations and debate IN BOTH HOUSE.
The Senate has had no official budget legislation, counter to House proposals, in two years.
The “spending reductions” in the just passed bill are reductions in “the baseline”, and the projected “baseline”, not in ACTUAL SPENDING. The “baseline” assumes automatic increases in many areas.
Reducing or slowing those “baseline” increases, marked by the WH and the CBO as “spending cuts” DO NOT CUT the amounts Obama is now spending in any area.
NOTHING enacted so far is or will cut OBAMA’S ACTUAL expenditures, except possibly by a mere $7 billion.
The key to Obama avoiding those reductions were (1) a Senate that refused to deliberate, (2) a GOP caught up in the right thing - the long term issues of our debt, and eventual slowing of THE BASELINE, (3) a totally stalled phony “negotiation” process that would insure that the only thing that would get any vote that counted would be a last-minute, do-or-die, take-it-or-leave-it or YOU create disaster bill. That was the objective of Obama and reid all along. And what did they need from THAT bill. They needed that it NOT alter Obama’s own spending during his term to 2012.
And in that last-minute bill, Obama did not get his hands tied on his ACTUAL SPENDING for the rest of his term. He won, because he won the only thing he really needed.
He will continue the phony public relations war over “cuts” that are not in fact cutting his actual spending. That purpose is not to restore spending he has never lost, but to try to pave the way for spending increases AFTER 2012.
A GOP that “did not back down” would have forced actual cuts in actual (not “baseline budgeting”) expenditures NOW AND NEXT YEAR; and by that I mean deep cuts, department by department directed cuts in discretionary spending.
He never cared about tax increases, he only cared about being able to spend more money. He never cared before where the money came from, taxes or deficits, and he doesn't care now. Being able to spend more money on his constituent special interest groups has always been his only goal.
Obama won 100% of what he wanted. Republicans got 0.