"some agreement on something"Bill Clinton in the White House press room
today:
So in my opinion, this is a good bill, and I hope that my fellow Democrats will support it. I thank the Republican leaders for agreeing to include things that were important to the president. There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan. And we all see this differently. But I really believe this will be a significant net plus for the country. I also think that in general a lot of people are breathing a sigh of relief that there's finally been some agreement on something.
About the Obama Deal. It's an odd beast. You could make yourself like it, by focusing on some provisions. Or you could make yourself hate it.
It's very hard to analyze since a final judgement - if it passes - will have to wait a couple of years in order to see what tactical positions are established, and exploited, by both sides.
posted by Quiddity at 12/10/2010 07:12:00 PM
It's horrible, but it's to be expected after the river card last month didn't give us that inside straight.
There are different optics to this.
One, the Dems could have replayed 1994 and challenged the Reps to a standoff to see which side blinked first. That would be the true hostage situation.
I think the Dems could have won that once people started seeing the extra withholding on their paychecks, but the 2-3 million unemployed losing their weeks 27 through 99 would have been some ugly collateral damage.
I am not very happy. Still, I have hope that the next two years will see better public messaging and the construction of dueling tax plans for the 2012 election that the public will vote on.
This is something Jerry Brown is going to do next June it looks like -- run a special election for the electorate to choose between two bad options -- higher taxes or lower services.
