Saying that he is “modestly optimistic,” President Obama emerged this evening to call the afternoon meeting at the White House between himself and Congressional leaders “constructive.” Obama said that Senate leaders Reid and McConnell will try reaching a deal on the cliff, and if they cannot, he wants an up or down vote in the House and the Senate on a slimmed down deal that preserves current tax rates on the middle class. The Republican House tried moving just such a deal last week, but failed on the fact that tax rates would still go up on top earners and small business owners.
Under Harry Reid’s leadership, the Democrat-controlled Senate has consistently avoided up-or-down votes on the budgets that the Republican-controlled House has passed. The president called the current impasse “deja vu all over again,” but if the Democrats actually allow a vote on anything meaningful, that would be a sort of progress.
President Obama, who was once an adjunct professor of constitutional law, should note that according to the Constitution, spending bills are supposed to originate in the House, not whatever chamber his party happens to control.
Update: NBC has announced that President Obama will appear on Meet the Press this Sunday.
Good title.
Update: NBC has announced that President Obama will appear on Meet the Press this Sunday.
I hope he starts waving around a high-capacity magazine. Nice of him to emerge from his 19th hole. I guess he’ll be known as the president who eats shoots and leaves.
Yeah, that is definitely one of the better heds of 2012.
He said jealously.
You know, these tax rates are the ones the Democrats ave been demonizing Republicans on since, what, 2001? That’s why they are called the Bush tax cuts, not the Clinton tax ciuts, certainly not the Obama tax cuts. So, is the President ready to say now that all the demonizing done before was wrong?
“Saying that he is “modestly optimistic,” . . . .”
I’m rather stunned that he has ever been “modestly” anything.
OBAMA WAS A TEACHING ASSISTANT! Please quit spreading the professor myth. Look it up.
So for the Meet the Press taping, will David Gregory wave around a teleprompter?
I thought you needed a license to carry a teleprompter in DC. Or is it a 30 round magazine? These gun laws are so confusing.
Whether a spending bill orgininates in the Senate, the House, or a whorehouse, it doesn’t matter, as long as it raises taxes, then it is legal. Every Harvard law grad should know that.
Here is one reason, among others, why I have a problem with what the President is doing: between himself, and Bill Clinton before him, we are putting into place a template where opponents of tax increases have got to have a two-third majority to insure that a strong-willed executive, backed by a nearly monolithic (but not representative) media, doesn’t destroy everything lest he not get his way. That makes a mockery out of the entire thing, where the less representative portions of the Federal government outweigh the more numerous, more representative. I hardly think the system was intended where minorities of the House were all that were required for tax increases, and that it would have to be super-majorities for decreases, or for just staying the same–if one has the President’s ear.
And if it was intended, then should we ask “should it be so”?
As a caveat on representation–if Barack Obama can almost singlehandedly decide to raise taxes, because opponents in the proper seat of such things, the House, have a majority but not a supermajority, and the Senate is blocked by one man from considering alternatives, and if we then take the argument of those who demand districts be apportioned by race because no one can be truly represented by someone of another race–then if Barack Obama essentially alone detetmines tax rates in the United States, and he is black, then is there taxation with representation for those not black? This is not silly–either my theory just proposed is wrong, or the “apportionment gy race” theory is wrong, and always has been.
Finally, folks might wish to bring up the fact that the Senate is held by Democrats, and it thus is not the case that Republicans have a majority of Congress. Please do.
Obama & the Democrats plus quite a few RINOs are perfectly happy to continue funding the interlocked unionized bureaucracy (city, county, state, federal) which is the pork-delivery system that keeps their voting blocs in line. When-not-if millions of unionzed bureaucrats become actively & publicly unhappy the grinning gainsaying politicians will know the Big Ponzi has run its course.
These DC pols are gonna squeeze the last drop of grease from the New Deal Great Society pork barrel and leave us holding the bag. Ruthlessly cruel 4th raters have taken control of our government. It took’em a hundred years but they finally did it. They mean to enjoy it while it lasts and they don’t care who gets hurt.