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Obama Doesn't Have Leverage in Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentThe White House is engaged in a very public campaign to win grassroots support for raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans—on various days this week, the president held a twitter chat on the subject, met with governors and CEOs, and visited a middle class family. It seems to be the only thing President Obama is talking about—in fact, his Treasury Secretary threatened to let the country go over the so called fiscal cliff if Republicans don't agree to the tax hike. He's been Johnny One-Note on the tax issue, and it seems to be working. Three polls in the last week and a half (Quinnipiac, AP, and ABC News/Washington Post) show majorities of voters now support the idea. Negotiating is all about leverage, and left is crowing that the White House is gaining leverage in the polls.
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The Susan Rice Fight Is Really About Making Obama Look Bad
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentThere is a clear bias in the media, but it's not the partisan bent newspapers and TV stations are often accused of having. It's a bias toward conflict and tension. Thoughtful people are not often asked to be on cable news and magazine shows. Screamers get air time. Dick Morris, a political consultant whose prognoses on the presidential election were laughably off-base, continues to pen a column in a Capitol Hill daily and appear on TV. The media often appears to have given up on telling people what's going on—they're too busy trying to tell everyone, in the loudest terms, how people feel about what's going on.
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Quinnipiac Poll on Norquist Tax Pledge Is Clearly Biased
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentThe pressure to break the GOP on its "no tax increase" position is mounting.
In classic Saul Alinsky style, President Barack Obama and his allies—who are already proposing two dollars in new spending for every dollar they get from raising tax rates on the so-called wealthiest Americans—have created the impression that the only impediment to a budget deal keeping America from going over the fiscal cliff is the Americans for Tax Reform "Taxpayer Protection Pledge."
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House Dems Ready to Follow Obama Over Fiscal Cliff
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentHouse Democrats are prepared to follow President Obama over the so-called fiscal cliff rather than extend the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, the number two Democrat on the House Budget Committee said Friday morning. She also said that any such deal that doesn't include an increase in the debt ceiling would be a nonstarter.
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Obama Must Postpone Hawaii Vacation Until Fiscal Cliff Is Averted
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentAs everyone who follows the news is aware, the U.S. government is rapidly heading off of a fiscal cliff. Without congressional and presidential action, tax rates go up on January 1 for all Americans and a number of the new Obamacare taxes kick in as does a sequester of federal spending that some have called "draconian."
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Inside the 2012 Super PACs
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentCAMBRIDGE, MASS.—The so-called "super PACs" had quite a year. They were initially painted as the Bond villains of the 2012 campaign: mysterious figures with apparently unlimited resources determined to dominate the political world. Then after the election they were written off in some quarters as political wastrels, burning through enormous sums of money without apparent return. To hear the masters of the super PAC universe tell it last week however, neither descriptive applied.
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Democrats Must Be Patient With Boehner's Fiscal Cliff Theatrics
Tweet Share on Facebook December 7, 2012 CommentIt has always seemed to me that there are three professions that are hauntingly alike: actors, preachers and politicians.
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Jim DeMint Better Suited for the Heritage Foundation Than Congress
Tweet Share on Facebook December 6, 2012 CommentConservatives may be sorry to see Jim DeMint go. And Democrats may have the opposite view of the South Carolina Republican senator who announced he's leaving, mid-term, to run the Heritage Foundation. Both views point to the same truth: that DeMint is better suited to a conservative think tank than he is to a legislative body where compromise is critical to success.
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Putting Obamacare on Fiscal Cliff Table a Bad Move for Republicans
Tweet Share on Facebook December 6, 2012 CommentJohn Boehner and Eric Cantor have put the Affordable Care Act on the table in the high stakes poker game between the president and the GOP leadership in the House of Representatives. I don't know whether House Republicans are serious about killing healthcare reform or they're just using it as a bargaining chip. Either way, the GOP needs to be careful or Obamacare may bite it on the butt. A butt that is still sore from the spanking it got on Election Day.
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Herman Cain's Campaign Says It Knew of Sexual Harassment Charges
Tweet Share on Facebook December 5, 2012 CommentCAMBRIDGE, MASS.—As Herman Cain's improbable presidential campaign imploded a year ago over allegations of sexual harassment when he was head of the National Restaurant Association, one question that lingered was why his team wasn't better prepared to deal with the charges. Did they not know what was in his past? They did, it turns out, they just didn't think it would matter.
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