{"id":10249,"date":"2012-02-27T20:05:10","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T01:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=10249"},"modified":"2022-03-10T12:28:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T17:28:15","slug":"i-helped-end-the-bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2012\/02\/27\/i-helped-end-the-bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"I helped end the Bush tax cuts for the rich"},"content":{"rendered":"

MoveOn<\/em> sent me an email telling me that I helped end the Bush tax cuts for the rich<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 This is what MoveOn<\/em> wanted me to share on the web.<\/p>\n

I joined over 250,000 MoveOn member and progressives calling for President Obama to veto any extension the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans–and he just made a public commitment to do it! Share this victory for the 99% with your friends, family, and co-workers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I posted this to my Facebook page<\/strong><\/a>, I added the comment:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, didn’t Obama back out of that commitment the last time? I will breathe easier when he actually does the veto as promised.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After receiving some push back on that remark, I explained why I made it.<\/p>\n

Fairly early in life I recognized a principle that I have stuck to. “Never make a threat that you won’t be willing to carry out if developments take you to the threshold you warned about.” There must be some equivalent idea in poker.<\/p>\n

Once you have backed down from carrying out a threat, then no threat in the future will carry any weight. So, if you have any doubts about your ability to carry out the threat, do not make it.<\/p>\n

If your opposition knows from past experience that you operate under that principle, they will take your words more seriously.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, they know your spine is weak and they can walk all over you. I can’t count the number of times I have emailed the President about this, and how many times he has been walked all over because he won’t take any advice.<\/p>\n

So am I supposed to pretend that this threat is serious? Should I be willing to look like a fool in front of the opposition, by pretending that I believe these threats?<\/p>\n

This isn’t just about Obama’s credibility anymore. This is now about my credibility. That is why I take his failures personally.<\/p>\n

I will now add a new law to this blog,\u00a0 Greenberg’s Law Of Idle Threats<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 “Never make a threat you don’t intend to carry out. \u00a0If you have any doubts about your ability to carry out the threat, do not make it.”<\/p>\n

Corollary:<\/p>\n

“If you never test the opposition about whether they make idle threats, then you enable them to ignore this law.”<\/p>\n

How many people remember George Bush’s threat, “Read my lips, No New Taxes.”\u00a0 Remember how he was ridiculed in and lost his bid for re-election because of his failure to carry out his threat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MoveOn sent me an email telling me that I helped end the Bush tax cuts for the rich.\u00a0 This is what MoveOn wanted me to share on the web. I joined over 250,000 MoveOn member and progressives calling for President Obama to veto any extension the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans–and he just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-greenbergs-law-of-idle-threats","7":"category-stevegsposts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10249"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29520,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10249\/revisions\/29520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}