Finally---those arrow-slinging Rotpublican evildoers are going to be on the receiving end---of some heavy artillery bombardment.

H/E (Democrats Good) or incendiary (Rotpublicans Bad), I wonder?

I'd like to see more reporting and less advice-giving on this blog. You're not as politically smart as Obama (who is?). Instead of telling him how to behave, you should tell us what is afoot.

Lowering taxes on middle-income people and raising taxes on the rich. If that isn't good Democratic politics, I'll eat my chapeau.

"It is exactly what the president told voters he'd do during the campaign"

That, and not the details, is the most important part of the whole post. Do what you told voters you were going to do, and they'll be happy.

Lots of luck to you if you think the voters are going to fall for this. The average citizen is sick and tired of the Democrats' beloved capital gains tax on stock purchases and isn't going to sit still for sophistry about "lower income taxes."

Oh yuck. I'm glad my representative is a Democrat. Robocalls are the WORST, even if it's a message I support and agree with.

The tax cuts were a stupid idea. It is so easy to cut them and so hard to raise them. It also buys into the republican meme that tax cuts=good even when we are running huge deficits.

And here we see the stupidity of the GOP's push-back plan in Myke K's response:

"The average citizen is sick and tired of the Democrats' beloved capital gains tax on stock purchases and isn't going to sit still for sophistry about 'lower income taxes.'"

If the "average citizen" HAD capital gains, we wouldn't be in this pickle, would we? Oh please, oh please make that an election talking point and elect more Democrats.

There are responsible tax cuts and irresponsible ones. These tax cuts are clearly irresponsible. They are big enough to be fiscally reckless, but too small to do any real good.

For more than three decades the Democratic establishment has been convinced it needed to be Republican-lite to get elected. Tax cuts til the sun burns out is part of this unexamined religion. They are still stuck on stupid. The American people didn’t vote for Republican policies because they liked them. The Republicans lied. Deregulation does not bring prosperity to the masses, neither did globalization, neither does shifting risk, for health care, retirement, education, child care, to working people with few resources. The blacks were not stealing all the government’s money through welfare. The terrorists were not trying to take over the United States. And the evangelicals were never going to turn the US into the kingdom of God. The conservative revolution had one purpose- the only real goal they achieved- to help the rich accumulate more money and keep that money.

Unfortunately the middle class had to stagnate and decline for that to happen. Tax cuts are not about broad American prosperity, no matter what the paid-for salesmen say on TeeVee. Wage earners need risk sharing programs; it is the rich that need tax cuts to cut them free from Middle Class welfare.

If Obama raises taxes on people making more than $250k/year, I hope that I will be one of those people lucky enough to have my taxes go up.

I think that is all the framing that a future tax increase needs. The very rich have done very well in the last eight years (and they were doing plenty well in the years before that) and it did not translate into income increases at the median level, and it's sure not looking good for the country right now.

What is important here is that #1-Obama and the Dems tell the truth: We are cutting taxes on the lower and middle class and these may be temporary to get the economy moving. #2-There will be tax increases for some now and some later that are designed to benefit the greatest number of people. #3-The highest good for all Americans is being served, to the best of our ability. I cannot do this alone, and we cannot accomplish our goals if we take an adversarial position to all that is going on. Cooperation, not combativeness, is the key to our recovery. Offer constructive criticism and solutions that serve the greater good; be willing to implement your suggestions personally, not demand others do what you are not willing to do.

I am committed to Oneness through Justice and Transformation
peace,
st john

I'd like to see more reporting and less advice-giving on this blog. -ebbolles

If you want news go read the news. Most of us care for and respect Steve's opinion and commentary, even when we disagree with it.

I hope the irony of armchair blogging that you don't think Steve should dispense advice is not lost on you, but I fear it is.

Myke K, there is no capital gains tax on stock purchases. Never has been. Who told you that you pay a capital gains tax when you buy a stock? Why in the world did you believe it?

I understand why it might be tempting to hoist Republicans on their own tax-cut petard but it's also a strategy that's likely to backfire in the end. First, no one really believes Republicans vote against tax cuts, so they are not likely to get hurt even when they do. Second, Democrats are also hitting Republicans for "failed" economic policies that mostly consist of tax cuts. Third, Republicans offered an alternative stimulus that was nothing BUT tax cuts. And finally, Democrats are never going to win in a tax-cut shootout with Republicans so they shouldn't even try. I think the public has pretty much decided that Republicans voted against the stimulus because they don't like spending. Better for Democrats to slam Republicans for being against jobs rather than play cute and attack them for voting against a tax cut.

just as this was a change election in terms of party control, it was a change election in terms of zeitgeist. This is the opportunity to expose Republicans as failures, bereft of principle and with no concern for the truth or effective public policy. Going after them for being opposed to middle class tax cuts means that the Democrats can reverse this message. The Republicans are very vulnerable to the are you better off than you were 8 years ago? questions. People are well aware tha they've presided over disastrous policies. Their ability to claim their traditionally bumpers stick electioneering is badly damaged. Now's the time.

Obama warned folks about the 'cable chatter' that seeks to distort the Stimulus package by focusing on a tiny fractions of it, such as the tax cuts....Good for him--he may have been referring to the CNBC kooks, but I'd add in there the MSNBC kooks too.

Contessa Brewer just repeatedly demanded a yes or no response from a Democratic representative from Massachusetts to this question: "Do you think someone who makes $250,000 is wealthy?".

I can't stand her.

As for tax increases, if they do not effect people who earn less than 100K or so (like lifting the payroll tax ceiling, restoring the Clinton era top marginal rates, ripping out loopholes like the investment banker gets special tax break) there will be no fallout. Moreover, Obama and the Democrats can get out tools like the tax calculator they used in the campaign. The republicans are absolutely dependent on the traditional media to feed their lies to the populace. Obama has shown that he can circumvent the tradmed.

I agree this has the potential for a good argument. But remember we are dealing with the intellectual equivalent of 13 year olds. They will dig in and interpret the fact that congressional republicans voted against tax cuts as a statement of how "truly evil" the package was.

If the President allows the ridiculous Bush tax cuts to expire, is that really a tax increase? Why is there the presumption that Bush's tax cuts would or must be renewed? Obama is not increasing taxes on wealthier Americans - he's letting Bushie-nomics die on the vine. And I say good riddance.

The real problem with this strategy is that it is basically a lie. Go compare the tax cut in this bill. It's 284 billion over eleven years compared to Bush's 1.4 trillion over eleven years. The first two years are swelled by AMT relief (not for the middle class) and temporary corporate tax relief. The personal tax provisions outside of the AMT are the $400 tax credit ($116 billion) and $40 billion in EITC, child credit, HOPE expansion, etc. Bush's tax cuts were bigger. Clinton's 1997 tax cuts were bigger, Reagan's were bigger. What we Democrats should be arguing is that Obama's were smarter. Size isn't everything.