The word is out, my friends: Democrats ALWAYS pay the ransom!

[Atticus]

I am certainly not anti-Obama. I did more to get him elected than many on this board. I do not regret that.

But, please---don't insult our intelligence by 'splainin' how we started off with a $250K threshhold for extending the Bush tax cuts and they started off opposing any extension so WE WON! This is rank, unadulterated bullshit, people!

That $250K figure isn't something just recently pulled out of a hat. The President mentioned this figure repeatedly during the campaign which, by the way, he won handily despite racism, despite the weak economy and despite hundreds of millions of dollars of tainted campaing contributions to his opponent. We picked up seats in the Senate. We picked up seats in the House and our House candidates out-polled the GOP candidates by over one million votes.

The prior spending cuts---amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars---have not been matched with ANY new taxes at this time.

There is no reason we should be conceding anything further. In my opinion, agreeing to increase the taxes on the wealthy to ONLY 39.6% is already a concession. I'd have rather seen us start out with the People's Budget as proposed by the Progressive Caucus. SEE: http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The_CPC_FY2012_Budget.pdf

Many have allowed themselves to be stampeded into "We have to make a deal" frame instead of just steadfastly insisting on AT LEAST what the American people thought they had voted for.

I fully expect to be reamed for this post. That's fine, but don't waste your time trying to convince me that the "deal" currently being discussed would be a win.