Lately there's been a lot of talk about how President Obama has negotiated a compromise with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. This talk has been going on in the media -- and even on this website -- with the assumption that Obama actually has the power to ram through such a compromise.
Does he? I don't think so. In fact, all it would take is one senator to block the Obama-Republican tax cut for the rich from even reaching the Senate floor for a vote.
In the Senate, there is a rule called a secret hold that allows a single senator -- any senator -- to prevent legislation from being voted on, without even going on the record as opposing it. It's anonymous. A senator who is worried that blocking a bill could hurt his or her reelection chances can block it anonymously.
Single Republican senators have used this rule repeatedly to block many of President Obama's judicial nominations. In fact, their use of the secret hold has been unprecedentedly frequent and brazen.
So all this talk about Obama having the power to compromise with Republicans on tax cuts for the wealthy is just empty talk. He has no power whatsoever to decide what kind of bill will even make it to the Senate floor for a vote. That power resides in the hands of individual senators.
If even one senator -- perhaps a strong liberal like Bernie Sanders -- decides to put a hold on tax cuts for the rich, then it won't even be voted on unless its supporters can get cloture, i.e. 60 votes for passage. With Democrats holding a solid majority in the Senate, would there really be 60 votes for cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans at a time of record deficits and attempts to cut spending? I suspect not, unless many Democratic senators completely abandon the basic principles of their party and vote with Republicans on this issue.
The reality of the situation is this: If no senators in the Democratic caucus, not even the avowedly socialist Bernie Sanders, decide to put a hold on tax cuts for the rich and force a requirement of 60 votes to pass it, then we will know for sure that there is not a single United States senator who is willing to fight for progressive economic policy.
All it takes is one senator to stand up on principle and block Obama's conservative compromise that he wants to give the Republicans. Will they do it? Will any one of them do it?
Somehow, I think it would be the perfect lesson for our president to see that somebody from his own party can be just as much of a brick wall preventing votes on what he wants as the Republicans have been time after time throughout the last two years. It would be poetic justice after his constant weakness allowing the other party to win on every issue.
The only thing this president responds to is people being stubbornly oppositional to the point of intractability. Every time other politicians take that tack, it works. So, how about if a progressive politician be the one to make him fold this time? It sure would be nice to see Sen. Sanders or one of the other liberal Democratic senators receiving lots of deferential attention from the president desperately trying to compromise with him and willing to give almost anything away to get him to stop blocking Obama's beloved tax cut bill.
Time for progressive senators to take a page from the Republican playbook. It certainly has been proven to work with this president!