It's so predictable. Obama has completely folded to the GOP on extensions of the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy.
White House Gives In On Bush Tax Cuts
"President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration was ready to accept an across-the-board continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.
That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.
"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."
Is anyone even surprised that Obama folded, once again, like a ten dollar lawn chair? He could have pressed for congress to vote on the issue before the election, but he didn't fight for that vote. He could have pressed for Congress to hold a vote during the lame duck Congress, but he didn't fight for that either. Obama isn't playing 11th dimensional chess. He isn't fighting for you or me. He's a serial capitulator, and I fear that he's going to destroy our party before his term is through.
UPDATE
Wow, a trip to the top of the rec list with my first diary! Thanks for the rec's & tips. I did want to address one point raised by many commentators, that this was "an article from HuffPo and shouldn't be trusted". To that I would respond that this is an on the record interview of David Axelrod by Sam Stein & Howard Fineman, two very credible reporters who have worked DC for years. And Axelrod is the President's oldest and most trusted adviser, so it's not like this is just more BS gossip from "anonymous sources" published by the execrable Politico crew. I tend to trust what Sam & Howard are reporting Axelrod to have said, and it sadly looks as though the President is waving the white flag again.
UPDATE 2
The story has made it's way out into the press, with TPM, Politico , ABC News , The Washington Post , MSNBC among others are all reporting on Obama's coming capitulation to the GOP. The only real question is not if Obama will fold, but whether he will fold on making the tax cuts for top earners permanent or if he will fold on a "temporary" 2-3 year extension of those cuts. Let me be clear about temporary cuts: If he folds on a temporary extension he might as well be making the cuts permanent, because the next GOP administration will make those Bush tax cuts permanent, and every indication at this point signals that Obama will not be enjoying a second term in office.