{"id":13142,"date":"2012-12-20T10:53:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T15:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=13142"},"modified":"2012-12-20T11:03:22","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T16:03:22","slug":"president-obama-almost-figures-it-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2012\/12\/20\/president-obama-almost-figures-it-out\/","title":{"rendered":"President Obama Almost Figures It Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

McClatchy News<\/em> has the story Obama, Boehner return to verbal fisticuffs on fiscal cliff<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama on Wednesday accused House Republicans of letting their animosity toward him prevent them from approving a deal to avert the nation\u2019s imminent fiscal crisis, even though the two sides had been close to a compromise days ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes,\u201d Obama said at a midday news conference at the White House. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much of that just has to do with, you know, it is very hard for them to say yes to me. But, you know, at some point, you know, they\u2019ve got to take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what\u2019s best for the country.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The President is getting close to understanding the problem.\u00a0 While it may be true that there is some personal animosity toward him from the Republicans, the real reason why this revolves around him personally is something else.<\/p>\n

The Republicans have figured out what a patsy he is, and they are determined to take advantage of what they know of his behavioral patterns.<\/p>\n

The quickest way for the President to turn this around is to say, “No” and then walk away.\u00a0 No more negotiations.\u00a0 Another tactic the President might employ is to find a stand-in for himself in the negotiations.\u00a0 He needs to find someone with a stiffer spine than he has.\u00a0 Some actual vetoes might do wonders for his negotiating position in the future.<\/p>\n

We don’t need for the President to prove what a great guy he is because he is willing to have his backers suffer the consequences.\u00a0 We need for him\u00a0 to decide what is right and fair, and not compromise on fairness.\u00a0 He seems to be willing to give the people earning between $250,000 and $400,000 a year a tax break paid for by cuts in the Social Security payments to the near poverty line seniors.\u00a0 How is this right and fair to pick on the people least able to manage the sacrifice in order to comfort the people most able to withstand some sacrifice?<\/p>\n

This compromise plan also takes money out of the hands of people who are so close to a minimum living standard that they spend almost every cent they get on goods and services that stimulate the economy.\u00a0 The money he takes out of their hands goes to people who have enough to spare that they can suck this money right out of the economy and just save a good deal of the extra money instead of spending it.<\/p>\n

The Fed is pouring liquidity into the economy at a furious rate, and the people who can afford to save are sucking it right back out almost as fast. Just imagine how much better we could do if the Fed and the rest of government weren’t working at cross purposes to each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McClatchy News has the story Obama, Boehner return to verbal fisticuffs on fiscal cliff. President Barack Obama on Wednesday accused House Republicans of letting their animosity toward him prevent them from approving a deal to avert the nation\u2019s imminent fiscal crisis, even though the two sides had been close to a compromise days ago. \u201cThey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13142","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=13142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13146,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13142\/revisions\/13146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}