How ironic it is that, one hundred fifty years after the election of Abraham Lincoln, The Great Emancipator, as President of the United States, we now have in that high office one Barack Obama, The Great Equivocator! Not that our current pseudo-Democratic President was always The Great Equivocator; during his successful presidential campaign, he was more of The Great Elucidator, telling the nation all about his plans, his dreams, the audacity of his hopes -- hey, he even wrote a book on that last subject. But, sadly, well, look what Barack Obama has become ("Well, look"." is the one of his favorite frequent phrases.)
During The Great Equivocator's 2008 run for President, one of his signature policy positions was an absolute refusal to continue the Bush tax giveaway to those earning more than a quarter of a million dollars each year. That unwarranted tax break had been misrepresented as being needed to stimulate job creation, when labor economists, among which I count myself, knew that precious few jobs are actually created by those earning above that amount of money. No, they are mainly either wealth inheritors, professionals, or corporate executives.
The mythical small business owners whom the Republicans credit with all of that mythical job creation rarely earn anything approaching that amount. George W. Bush only got these tax cuts for the wealthy passed at the beginning of his term of office by allowing the Congress to make them strictly temporary, set to expire at the end of this present month of December, 2010.
As that expiration date nears, any President worthy of that title, and for that matter anyone with a backbone, would have let those unwarranted, unjustified, and unwise tax cuts, which will cost us trillions of dollars over the next decade, expire on schedule.
But not The Great Equivocator -- no, when the Republicans put pressure on him to renew those tax cuts for "all Americans" as they put it (read All Wealthy Americans in truth), The Great Equivocator caved in. Well, look, Barack Obama said, we have to extend unemployment compensation for those who have lost their jobs, and the only way the Republican Scrooges will allow that extension is if I allow the continuation of all tax cuts. So, Let's Make A Deal, let's be bipartisan, let's be realistic -- let's be cowardly, would have been more accurate, of course, but presidents only admit to such monumental errors in judgment in their memoirs, if then.
Meanwhile, the Republican Congressional leadership could not contain their delight with this Dirty Deal; some Senators, interviewed by CNN, could not even contain their smirks at how they had once more defeated The Great Equivocator. Shame on you for the Sham, Barack. Your vaunted Audacity of Hope has become the Iniquity of Cowardice!
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