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Democrats throw Obama under the bus over payroll taxcut

Obama caves again

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  December 17th, 2011 at 12:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The Democrat-controlled Senate voted 89-10 to pass an extension of the payroll tax cut. According to theAssociated Press, the two-month extension requires President Obama to grant a permit for the Canada-to-Texas Keystone pipeline within 60 days unless he determines that the pipeline is “not in the national interest.”

Obama had implied that he would veto any bill that required that he make a decision before it was politically expedient for him to do so. During his December 7, 2011-presser with Canada’s Prime Minister Harper, Obama put everybody on notice:

First of all, any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject.  So everybody should be on notice.

If you can stomach it, you can watch Obama say it here.

Obama, putting politics before country, tried to kick his decision down the road until after the 2012 elections. The Republican-controlled House didn’t let Obama get away with that and passed a payroll tax cut extension bill despite Obama’s veto threat.

Thrown under the bus by Senate Democrats, Obama again caved. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer indicated Obama would sign the two-month extension measure.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://www.planettron.com NickDeringer

    As I predicted, One-bama his pretending to move toward the center as the election moves closer. He’s trying to put on the old “moderate” costume again, but it seems to have shrunk a bit.

    Kudos to the GOP for calling his bluff.

    • romansdaughter

      nt

  • Change Jar Conservative

    He will simply say that the pipeline is not in the best interest of America.

    Very surprised that the GOP in congress gave him this much wiggle room.

    • Kyle-MI

      Obama punted on the decision, not on killing the pipeline.
      He did that because he was in a lose-lose situation. No matter what decision he made, it would make a large part of his base very unhappy. If he killed the pipeline it would anger unions (and just about every non-elite normal person including large swaths of the middle class and independents). If he allowed the pipeline, it would anger the greens, including young liberals, academics, and the Hollywood elite. Many of the greens have a whole party for which they can vote in protest, conveniently named after them.

      And on top of everything else, he threatened to veto the bill if they forced him into a decision. He is now backing away from that threat, damaging his credibility with his backers and hurting any future veto threats.

    • lineholder

      one interesting fact about this situation that hasn’t been mentioned all that much is that Obama et. al. were seeking to tie this to agreement for increases in taxes on the rich, so that they could prove Repubs are against the “common man” and perpetuate their class warfare agenda.

      It failed. Dems have chosen to do this much at least. But I suspect that during the next two months, we’ll be hearing a lot more about Republicans’ support of the rich, etc. that the left is so found of. Maybe they are hoping they can put pressure back on Repubs by doing it this way.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      Bravo Congress

      • SoFiMil

        He’s so stupid, he just might try this stunt. And none of his advisors will date tell him no.

  • izoneguy


    Democrats: Concession to GOP on Keystone will force Obama to kill pipeline

    Do they really think Obama will bow down to the “greenies” before the unions??? If Obama went forward with the pipeline the “greenies” will revolt, but probably still vote for him.
    Now if Obama kils the pipeline and tells Canada to take a hike then the Republicans will have a real meaty issue going into Nov. 2012.
    Every Republican candidate needs to go on record telling Canada they will build the pipeline. They need to – in real clear language say – Jan 2013 they will reverse Obama’s NO decision and will throw all resources needed to build the pipeline in record time.

    • Ausonius

      One could turn your statement around: do they really think MAObama will bow down to the unions before the greenies?

      Who else will the unions vote for? :)

      BIG BRObama is a radical: expect 2 months of strident propaganda against evil oil companies, with maps showing the pipelines we already have, and statements like: “Do we really want ANOTHER pipeline running through our backyards, near our schools and rivers and lakes, with the possibility of more breaks and spills and disasters? TELL THE OIL COMPANIES ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!”

      Of course, if he wises up a little, BIG BRObama might sell out the greenies first: in either case 2012 will be an “interesting year”…in the Chinese curse sense.

      • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

        what he does now. If he chooses to kill 20K jobs in public, then thank you Mr Dukakis, but the real scandal is that pipelines have to be studied at all! We know how to do pipelines and even save snail darters in the process. It is CRIMINAL that humans that need jobs are relegated to an afterthought unless they work for the EPA.

      • renl57

        The college vote (students and professors) were a big part of Obama’s coalition in 2008.

        And they are taking direction from the environmentalists. They all believe the United States will destroy the planet’s ecology if Obama doesn’t prevent it.

        Obama could afford to alienate a few thousand environmental activists. But he can’t afford to alienate millions of the college educated.

        Obama doesn’t worry about the blue-collar union vote. He wrote them off months ago. His strategy is to repeat what he did in 2008–do an end run around the private sector working class by appealing to the college crowd, public employee unions, blacks and Hispanics, gays and lesbians.

        • Ausonius

          We will see if that strategy which you have delineated still works: since BIG BRObama is loyal to himself only, so it is impossible so far to predict what he might do. I tend to think he will lean to the radical environmentalists and let the unions dangle.

          Also possible: BIG BRObama can vote Present on the pipeline, and hope that Reid and/or EPA bureaucrats will do his dirty work for him to sabotage the pipeline, the former by tacking a prohibition against it as an amendment onto e.g.a Defense Department funding bill, or whatever would make Republicans choke and splutter.

          The E.P.A. or Energy Department could be used to sabotage things as well.

          Never underestimate MAObama!

  • throwback59

    appeased the Republicans over the pipeline he’ll answer: “Go ask Osama if I’m an appeaser.”

  • johnt

    The O is running up quite a record, anybody for bicycles? Odds are O will cave again in two months, much depends on what words Axelrod will put in his mouth. The Axe has been busy doing studies on monkeys and a-holes. No surprise, born in the gutter, live in the gutter, but at least he knows the latter from personal introspection.

  • direstraits

    123.. :)

  • red_refugee

    If the president was a Republican the media would call this “A Raid on the Social Security Trust Fund.”

    I really want to know what this does to accelerate the bankruptcy of Social Security, but try finding that information on the internet.

  • tomatin

    The House GOP will now vote to increase real spending two years in a row.

    We are the ones being thrown under the bus.

  • SoFiMil

    If he tries this route citing exigent circumstances of an Aloha vacation, I hope someone in Congress files suit and SCOTUS doesn’t punt.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      please…smile

      • SoFiMil

        about 5:30 pm Eastern (Saturday).

        I thought Obama might fly off to Hawaii to see the first lady early this afternoon before the bill got to his desk in the Oval Office. Rather than have it flown over to Hawaii by jet for the President’s signature, he might have ordered the autopen to do it and a avoid a photo-flop. Possubly justification?: “It would save the taxpayers money.”

        Yeah, tell that to FLOTUS who’s already in the Aloha state.

        : )

  • OccamsRazor

    If obama can’t take care of me, who can?

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