By E.J. Dionne Jr.
WashPost
Monday, September 20, 2010
In
any athletic contest, winning teams play their own game and force the
other side to play that game, too. The same being true in elections,
it's remarkable how timidity leads Democrats to fight this year's
campaign on Republican terms.
Nowhere is this more obvious than
on taxes, where the entire debate revolves around what to do about the
cuts enacted under George W. Bush. Almost no one is talking about
extending the progressive tax cuts that were included in President
Obama's stimulus program. Nor are we discussing the impending death of a
pro-work public assistance program that, for a rather modest sum, has
helped provide jobs to 250,000 low-income Americans.
At least on
the Bush tax cuts, Obama has drawn a clear and sensible line. He's said
that Congress should extend the reductions for the middle class but not
those for families earning more than $250,000 a year.
For the
life of me, I don't get why some Democrats are so afraid of this vote.
Substantively, most of the 31 House Democrats who signed a letter last
week urging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to chicken out of this fight
claim to be deficit hawks. Why, then, add $700 billion to the deficit
for the purpose of continuing a tax program that disproportionately
benefits millionaires?
(More
here.)
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