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Is Obama the Worst Legislative Negotiator of the Last Century?
by Joseph J. Thorndike
Some day, I’d like to get President Obama at my poker table. Whatever your feelings about the fiscal cliff and its optimal resolution, one thing is clear: Obama doesn’t know a winning hand when he sees it.
On the merits, yesterday's fiscal cliff deal is pathetic. It does nothing to solve the nation’s long-term fiscal problems, it guarantees an immediate rehash once the debt limit runs out next month, and it ensures that pretty much every American will still see a substantial tax hike (since it doesn’t include a payroll tax cut extension or similar replacement), That means middle class Americans can expect to see their after-tax incomes fall by about 1.5 percent. Which, in turn, should shave about 0.6 of a percentage point off GDP growth. So we've got that to look forward to.
But what’s really amazing about this deal is how completely Obama bungled it. He entered this fight with a biggest political edge than he's had at any time during his presidency. And probably a bigger one than he will ever see again.
Judged simply in terms of governing skill, the deal is a remarkable self-inflicted wound. It's not the deal you make when you hold all the cards. It’s the deal you make after calling the GOP bluff. After you let the tax cuts expire. After you introduce your own plan to cut taxes for The 98 Percent,. After you’ve dared the Republicans to vote against that tax cut. And after they've inflicted even more political harm on themselves by doing exactly that. At that point, and only then, do you make a deal like this.
Maybe Obama knows something I don’t know. Maybe he knows to a certainty that a week or so on the far side of the fiscal cliff really would send the economy into a tailspin. Or maybe he’s just a better person than I am.
But speaking as an historian -- as someone who’s spent a lot of time examining the partisan politics of previous decades – I think it’s safe to say that Obama is among the most shockingly inept negotiators to occupy the White House in a century. Maybe shockingly is the wrong word, because he seems almost deliberately inept. By the time most presidents get to the Oval Office, they know a thing or two about how to win a political fight. But even after a full term of on-the -job training, Obama still doesn't get it. Even Jimmy Carter -- in my estimate, the reigning champion among lousy negotiators during the last 75 to 100 years -- could have done better than this.
Obama entered this debate with impressive advantages. He has now obliterated all of them. And he's certainly reassured Republicans that he is still the same easy mark he’s always been.
http://www.taxanalysts.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/JTHE-93JKVW?OpenDocument
by Joseph J. Thorndike
Some day, I’d like to get President Obama at my poker table. Whatever your feelings about the fiscal cliff and its optimal resolution, one thing is clear: Obama doesn’t know a winning hand when he sees it.
On the merits, yesterday's fiscal cliff deal is pathetic. It does nothing to solve the nation’s long-term fiscal problems, it guarantees an immediate rehash once the debt limit runs out next month, and it ensures that pretty much every American will still see a substantial tax hike (since it doesn’t include a payroll tax cut extension or similar replacement), That means middle class Americans can expect to see their after-tax incomes fall by about 1.5 percent. Which, in turn, should shave about 0.6 of a percentage point off GDP growth. So we've got that to look forward to.
But what’s really amazing about this deal is how completely Obama bungled it. He entered this fight with a biggest political edge than he's had at any time during his presidency. And probably a bigger one than he will ever see again.
Judged simply in terms of governing skill, the deal is a remarkable self-inflicted wound. It's not the deal you make when you hold all the cards. It’s the deal you make after calling the GOP bluff. After you let the tax cuts expire. After you introduce your own plan to cut taxes for The 98 Percent,. After you’ve dared the Republicans to vote against that tax cut. And after they've inflicted even more political harm on themselves by doing exactly that. At that point, and only then, do you make a deal like this.
Maybe Obama knows something I don’t know. Maybe he knows to a certainty that a week or so on the far side of the fiscal cliff really would send the economy into a tailspin. Or maybe he’s just a better person than I am.
But speaking as an historian -- as someone who’s spent a lot of time examining the partisan politics of previous decades – I think it’s safe to say that Obama is among the most shockingly inept negotiators to occupy the White House in a century. Maybe shockingly is the wrong word, because he seems almost deliberately inept. By the time most presidents get to the Oval Office, they know a thing or two about how to win a political fight. But even after a full term of on-the -job training, Obama still doesn't get it. Even Jimmy Carter -- in my estimate, the reigning champion among lousy negotiators during the last 75 to 100 years -- could have done better than this.
Obama entered this debate with impressive advantages. He has now obliterated all of them. And he's certainly reassured Republicans that he is still the same easy mark he’s always been.
http://www.taxanalysts.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/JTHE-93JKVW?OpenDocument
