Politics Schmolitics

Rush Limbaugh sends something called "Rush in a Hurry" to those of us who are on his email list.  Since I don't listen quite so much as I used to, I can go there and get a quick view of what El Rushbo has been talking about.

It turns out that the tax deal is breaking down.  It sounds like the Democrats are loading it up with spending.  Either the Republicans swallow this in order to get the tax cuts, or nobody gets anything.  I didn't check into what Rush said about it other than he hopes it goes down to defeat, so I'll put in with my own opinion here.

Here's what I see:  if the Republicans sign on to this, two things could happen with respect to deficits.  They get bigger (most likely), or they get smaller (not likely).  If they get bigger, the Democrats can always blame the tax cuts for it.  If the deficits actually get smaller (big surprise), the Democrats can claim that the spending doesn't hurt, so let's do more!  In other words, no matter how the deficit turns out in this scenario, the Democrats can't lose.

Now, let's look at the economic impact.  Again, two things can happen: the economy improves or the economy gets worse.  If the economy gets better, the Democrats can say the spending improved the economy, not the tax cuts.  But if the economy gets worse, the Democrats can blame the tax cuts, especially since the deficit is likely to get worse.  So, they can cover their butts that way too.

Now, if everything blows up, and there are no tax cuts and there is no spending either, the Democrats are covered there too.  They can claim that there hasn't been enough spending all along, and so they'll demand more.

The short and the long of this is that the Democrats are just positioning themselves for the next election.  Just as Krugman indicated here.  How about doing what the people want?  No, that would not be in their political interest.  They are counting on short memories and short attention spans.  And they just might get away with it.  Why not?  They've been getting away with this kind of thing for years.  No need to change now.


Update:
Krauthammer is calling the  tax deal the Swindle of the year.   Erik Erikson of Red State says Tax Compromise Must Now Die.  Pass or no pass, the issues are not being addressed.  It's political posturing.