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What House Democrats Will Do If They're Smart

Submitted by Ken Watts on Thu, 12/16/2010 - 11:24

THIS IS GOING TO BE a short post.

The House is going to consider the "best deal we could get" today, and I just want to ask why the best deal we could get is the one the Republicans wanted?

It's time that the "best deal we can get" is really a deal, really a half-way point between two sides, not just a rubber stamp on the position of an ideological minority.

It's a rhetorical question.

The answer is that Obama takes his base for granted—even the elected base in Congress, and they've been letting him.

If the Democrats in the House have any sense, they'll make it clear that the "best deal we can get" includes at least a whopping inheritance tax on billionaires.

Because without that, the deal is ungettable.

Send the bill back to the Senate with that in it, plus an increase in the tax cuts for the middle class, paid for by the estate tax, and make the Republicans pass it that way, or take the blame for blocking a Democratic tax cut for all Americans.

They will blink.

It's time that Democrats said "No."

It's time that the "best deal we can get" is really a deal, really a half-way point between two sides, not just a rubber stamp on the position of an ideological minority.

At least, that's what I think today.