Negotiating in gibberish
by digby
Brian Beutler reports on the rather silly brouhaha over Bill Clinton allegedly saying that he thought the tax cuts should be extended. (He sort of did and sort of didn't but who cares really?)
Anyway, Beutler talks about the so-called "fiscal cliff" that awaits the congress and the president after the election and explains how the two parties are approaching it:
Avoiding this so-called “fiscal cliff” is thus a top priority for policymakers of both parties. So is devising legislative strategy to maximize each individual party’s chances of using the cliff to make major ideological advancements.
For the Republicans, this means making the Bush tax cuts permanent; for the Democrats it means breaking the GOP’s anti-tax absolutism, and drawing down future budget deficits with both higher taxes and lower spending, without making radical changes to safety net programs.
I've written about my problem with this approach ad nauseum so I won't do it again.
But let me ask you: which of the above arguments would you want to make, the one that simply says, "we want tax cuts for everybody!" or the one that says "we want to draw-down-future-budget-deficits with both-higher-taxes-and-lower-spending without making-radical-changes-to-the-safety-net (while also breaking the GOPsantitaxabsolutism)?
Right. One side is staking out a negotiating position. The other side is trying to be all things to all people. Which one do you suppose is likelier to win?
Deficits shouldn't be a priority right now. The economy is very weak. So, let the GOP argue for their tax cut extension. The Democrats should argue for protecting all programs that benefit real people. If there has to be a deficit deal (and honestly, there shouldn't be one at all) they can cut useless defense spending. That's your compromise. If they won't go along, then just agree to extend the tax cuts for two more years and protect the programs. This whole fiscal cliff nonsense is a kabuki pageant and from the sound of the dialog, the Democrats are playing the role of the designated losers again. They are good at it, you have to admit.
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