Obama defends deal with Republicans on tax cut
WASHINGTON
Sensitive to charges of caving on bedrock principles, he said he
welcomed fights with the GOP ahead of his 2012 re-election bid.
"I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I'm
itching for a fight on a whole range of issues," Obama said. "I
suspect they will find I am. And I think the American people will
be on my side."
The subject was taxes, who would or wouldn't keep Bush-era
reductions come Jan. 1. But for Obama, barely a month after
disastrous congressional losses to the Republicans, there was a lot
more to it.
What emerged Tuesday was a portrait of a president determined to
show he's not a weak, irrelevant capitulator -- the kind of image
that, if it becomes part of a lasting narrative, could derail his
presidency and re-election bid.
In the past few days, Obama has tried to recover from the
midterm elections by showing deference to his opponents, angering
allies in the process.
The key moment came Monday, when he announced a deal with
Republicans that would extend tax cuts to all taxpayers for two
years, after long insisting that upper income Americans did not
need the help and the nation couldn't afford it. Though he won a
number of concessions from Republicans, congressional Democrats
were left bristling.
Besides the tax deal, he also disappointed labor by calling last
week for a freeze on federal wages. And he has insisted that the
Senate take up a nuclear arms treaty ahead of other Democratic
priorities.
It's a template for a new Washington relationship after two
years of relying on Democratic muscle to pass the health care
overhaul and other of his signature initiatives.
For Obama, this political pirouette could be both risky and
unruly, causing chaos within his own party while requiring the
support of Republicans who are openly seeking to make him a
one-term president.
"The president is confronted with a very difficult situation,"
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday, describing the
bitterness many Democrats voiced against the tax deal.
The intraparty upheaval comes as a new poll by the Pew Research
Center finds Democrats and people who lean to the Democratic side
giving Obama mixed ratings on traditional party positions.
Forty-three percent say he is doing a fair or poor job on such
issues as protecting the interests of minorities, helping the poor
and representing working people.
Obama's news conference was meant not just to lobby for the
agreement he made with Republicans but to lobby for himself as a
leader who hasn't lost sight of what he called the north star:
"What is helping the American people live out their lives?"
Pressed on why he wasn't able to keep from getting so boxed in,
Obama called out Republicans for ideological rigidity on tax cuts
for the rich ("This is their holy grail") and Democratic
lawmakers for not acting earlier ("I would have liked to have seen
a vote before the election").
Obama was so determined to show his toughness, in fact, that he
compared Republicans on Tuesday to hostage-takers willing to do
serious harm. To Americans.
In an echo of his 2008 campaign, Obama sought to define himself
as a doer, not a partisan fighter. And he signaled a more
incremental governing style, recalling the birth of Social Security
and Medicare as far more modest proposals than they are now.
He argued that some of his critics on the left would prefer to
"have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no
victories for the American people."
"That can't be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat,"
he said.
For Obama, the nation's first black president and one who isn't
quick to bring up his race, his final defense of dealmaking was his
most eye-opening.
"This country was founded on compromise," he said. "I
couldn't go though the front door at this country's founding."
Obama insisted Tuesday that he still has plenty of fight left to
confront Republicans and defend Democratic principles. The tax cut
deal, he said, was essential to prevent a tax increase on all
taxpayers and it bought him time to fight Republicans later on
extending tax cuts to the wealthy.
"I'm as opposed to the high-end tax cuts today as I've been for
years," he said. "When they expire in two years I will fight to
end them."
White House officials say they welcome that confrontation,
arguing that an improving economy will make it harder for
Republicans to defend lower tax rates for the rich. But for now,
Obama is dealing with the results of the Nov. 2 elections, which
put the House in Republicans hands starting in January and trimmed
the Democratic majority in the Senate.
Obama's new approach echoes that of President Bill Clinton, who
saw Democrats lose control of the House two years into his first
term in 1994. Clinton, too, provoked Democrats by reaching
agreements with Republicans, most notably on an overhaul of welfare
laws that left liberals seething.
Eager to avoid a wholesale revolt, Obama has voiced support for
top Democratic initiatives that his allies want to complete this
year before Congress adjourns. But as he pressed for a tax
agreement and a Senate vote on the START nuclear treaty, the
likelihood of action on immigration and don't ask, don't tell are
slipping away.
"There's no question he has made a pivot," said Matt Bennett,
a former Clinton aide and a vice president at the think tank Third
Way. "He lives in a world profoundly different than he did before
Nov. 2."
During his news conference, Obama's bring-it-on defiance to all
skeptics brought a smile from his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, who sat
a few feet away from his boss. The Obama White House almost
relishes the moment when people count them as down, if not out.
The president's fiercest words came for members of his own
party. He shot back at those concerned he was compromising too
much. He compared the situation to the health care debate, when
liberal Democrats complained that he caved in by failing to include
a government-run insurance plan. He said they still miss the bigger
picture.
"If that's the standard by which we are measuring success or
core principles, then let's face it, we will never get anything
done," he said.
And finally came a dare to fellow Democrats.
"Take a tally. Look at what I promised during the campaign.
There's not a single thing that I've said that I would do that I
have not either done or tried to do. ... To my Democratic friends,
what I'd suggest is, let's make sure that we understand this is a
long game."