Demanding sacrifices on the altar of compromise by @DavidOAtkins

Demanding sacrifices on the altar of compromise

by David Atkins

The traditional media’s day wouldn’t be complete without another story about those horrible, nasty politicians and their awful insistence on being partisan jerks, and oh, how bad both sides are for not being more reasonable and compromising to do the business of the nation. Democrats and Republicans, tsk tsk. Always the same, bless their hearts, like little children too immature for the No Labels adults. The New York Times is happy to deliver the typical pearl clutching outrage:

Their poll numbers sinking, their constituents badly bruised by economic hardship and with millions of American workers about to get a sudden and unexpected tax increase, what are members of Congress discussing? Shutting down the government. Again.

For the third time in a year, the divided 112th Congress is dancing on the edge of catastrophe, locked in a bitter partisan battle over fiscal measures, with unrelated policy debates clinging to the side.

All right, so what’s the problem?

Republicans and Democrats do not agree on how to pay for something that both sides claim to want — extension of a payroll tax holiday for almost every worker — and have until the end of the year to work it out or see the tax go up, something that most economists say would further damage the nation’s fragile economic health by taking money out of consumers’ pockets.

Wait a minute here. There’s an argument over how to pay for a tax cut? I thought Republican orthodoxy said tax cuts paid for themselves. Where was this debate over making the Bush tax cuts pay for themselves? Where was the insistence on making the the elimination of the Paris Hilton tax pay for itself? Why are we even having this debate at all? Both sides want a tax cut for the middle class. Shouldn’t Republicans be gleeful that Democrats have hopped aboard the tax cut train?

Well, no. First, the Times has another smarmy reproach for politicians on both sides:

Now, with Congress entering a winter of discontent, each side expressed outrage — much of it manufactured — on Wednesday and blamed the other side for the potential debacle looming at the end of the week.

Yeah, we get it. Horrible partisanship, blah blah blah. So what are the actual details of battle lines that the Times has helpfully buried toward the bottom of the article below their both-sides-do-it anti-partisan harangue?

After meeting privately with President Obama on Wednesday, Senate Democrats began to cobble together a new deal to extend the payroll tax without using a surcharge on incomes over $1 million, something Republicans detest. They hope the new measure will have legs in both chambers, but Mr. Obama’s press office said Wednesday that the president would like Congress to pass a short-term financing measure, known as a continuing resolution, for now.

Slow down a second. Democrats initially insisted on paying for the payroll tax cut extension with a surcharge on millionaires, but gave it up because they knew Republicans wouldn’t go along with it–even though every poll shows strong support among an overwhelming supermajority of Americans for raising taxes on the super rich to pay for popular programs. And in this case, not even a popular program, but a tax cut. Democrats gave that up, and are hoping to pass the popular middle-class tax cut extensions with a continuing resolution. In other words, Democrats wanted to do something popular, and pay for it by doing something even more popular. When Republicans denied them the opportunity to do the super-popular thing, they settled for just the popular thing–the tax cut that Republicans refuse to pass on its own. That sounds pretty much like compromise to me. So what is the Republican plan passed by the House?

Mr. Reid wants to quickly vote the bill down because while it would extend a cut in Social Security payroll taxes for 160 million workers, it also eases the way for an oil pipeline opposed by environmental groups, blocks certain air pollution rules, freezes the pay of many federal employees through 2013, increases some Medicare premiums, and greatly reduces unemployment benefits and adds a host of new rules for receiving them.

Perfect. Republicans want to roll back air quality rules (deeply unpopular), build a tar sands pipeline (middlingly popular but apocalyptic for the climate), freeze the pay of federal employees through 2013 (popular but arbitrary, punitive, near useless for deficit reduction, and harmful during a recession), increase Medicare premiums (insanely unpopular), stiff unemployment benefits (unpopular, heartless and again stupid during a recession) and force the unemployed to jump through more hoops (degrading and pointless. Wait, no. Degrading the unemployed as subhuman is the whole point.)

This is the Republican offer. A bevy of ideas by turns unpopular, insane, counterproductive and harmful, each one worse than the last–and all offered as the price tag for a tax cut that Democrats would be happy to pass alone. The Democrats, meanwhile, half-heartedly demanded a popular and useful millionaire’s tax before caving nearly instantly when Republicans refused to play ball.

And for this, the New York Times pooh-poohs both sides for intransigence and bitter, petty partisanship. For this, even members of my own Democratic Central Committee roundly proclaim how tired voters are of the “extremist partisanship,” declare their interest in and support for No Labels, and insist that Democrats should learn to be more “moderate” and “compromising.”

Where, Gray Lady of the Times, should Democrats have given up more ground in order to avoid this situation? Which particular insane poison pills in the Republican House bill should Democrats vote for in order to avert a government shutdown?

What more proof would you have that Republicans don’t care if the government shuts down, because they hate government anyway, and because the economic tailspin caused by a shutdown would, in their calculations, sabotage the economy thereby hurting the President’s re-election chances? What would it take for you to finally tell your readers the truth: that Republicans, like the evil mother in the Judgment of Solomon, are willing to kill the baby to get what they want over and over again, while Democrats continue to play the role of the good mother, giving up everything they own to save it?

Except that in this story, we have no Solomon. We have a vile jurist sitting in judgment of both sides, slapping them equally across the face for daring to sully his courtroom with their divisive argumentation rather than reach a deal with one another through arbitration–even as the good mother’s own supposed friends and relatives would rather sell her and her baby down the river just to avoid hearing another nasty word of partisan argument.

Because as we all know, “divisiveness” is the greatest of all mortal sins, regardless of how far backward only one side is forced to bend to avoid it.

Morally repulsive, one and all. Former Republican blogger John Cole said it best:

Time for the Annual Collapse

It appears Obama will not veto the Defense bill with the hideous detention policies, and I just heard that the Democrats have dropped the millionaire surtax for the payroll tax cuts.

I never knew the amount of depression and self-loathing that was involved in becoming a Democrat. I honestly think I hate Democrats more now that I am one than I did when I was a Republican.

John just doesn’t understand: Democrats just need to compromise more. On something. Anything. Everything, really. Don’t take it from me. Take it from the New York Times. They really know what’s best for America, and that’s more one-sided compromise.