As the Obama-McConnell tax deal makes its way through Congress with heavy Republican support, it’s interesting to watch the Republicans who’ve decided to publicly come out against it. Rush Limbaugh seems to oppose it just because it’s a deal with Obama. Similarly, Charles Krauthammer fears it will stimulate the economy and save Obama in 2012. Jim DeMint sticks to the Big Two dogmatic principles of no-tax-increases-ever-ever (he interprets the reduction in the estate tax rate as a “tax increase” because there was no estate tax this year) and no-new- spending-without-offsets. Sarah Palin seems to agree.
Mitt Romney probably gets the most attention for his USAToday op-ed coming out against the deal on grounds that temporary tax rates are a bad idea and that the whole UI system needs to be overhauled.
That’s a lot of heavyweight opinion on the Right opposing this deal, even as rank-and-file Republicans appear to support it (according to new polls from Pew and from WaPo/ABC).
Why the dissenting voices? Well, there’s always an appreciative audience among conservatives for anyone opposing bipartisanship; after all, some of the progressive hostility to the deal is based on a desire to emulate the strategic unreasonableness of the Right. But more importantly, you could call it the TARP Factor: the fear of supporting legislation that might turn into a symbol of the hated status quo. So long as it’s manageable, and there are enough Republicans in Congress to get the deal through, quite a few conservatives will inevitably sneak out of class and avoid the risk of raising a hand in support of it.
The real problem could come, of course, if House Democrats succeed in changing the deal (say, by modifying the estate tax provisions to get a little closer to the rates and exemptions that prevailed before 2001), and there’s a real opportunity for congressional Republicans to get off the bus. Then we would find out which Republicans are standing on principle, and which are simply looking for a way to posture against taxes and spending without accepting the consequences of an expiration of tax cuts, UI benefits, and other goodies extended in this bill.

Lord knows I’m not averse to early coverage of the 2012 presidential cycle, but there’s coverage based on reasonable speculation, and then there’s speculation based on…well…insider fantasies and thin air.
Politico supplied a spectacular example of the latter today with an unintentionally hilarious piece entitled “John Thune looms over Tim Pawlenty’s Iowa plan.”
Now insofar as Sen. Thune has not taken a single real step towards running for president, and specifically has not been spending time in Iowa, it’s a bit hard to suggest that he’s “looming” over much of anything in that state. Yes, Beltway GOP Establishment types love him dearly, apparently because he is considered very pretty. But as the Politico article notes, a Des Moines Register survey earlier this year showed that 71% of self-identified Republicans in Iowa had no opinion of the guy whatsoever. Now “looming” is, I suppose, a relative term, but even Tim Pawlenty registered a bit more in the survey than Thune, since only 53% of self-identified Republicans in Iowa drew a blank on him, after his eight years as governor of neighboring Minnesota.
At this point, careful readers of the Politico piece might well wonder why its authors are paying so much attention to two guys who don’t seem to be going anywhere without so much as a mention of Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich–you know, people Iowa Republicans do know something about, and who also have national followings. The planted axiom appears to be that Thune and Pawlenty have a big advantage over the field due to physical proximity to Iowa; indeed, the article goes to some length to document the rather obvious fact that it doesn’t hurt to be within a short commute of Des Moines or the Quad Cities.
And yes, there have been cases of candidates who won the Iowa Caucuses in part because of friends-and-neighbors factor: notably Dick Gephardt in 1988 and Bob Dole in 1988 and 1996. But both these gents were very major national politicians when they campaigned in Iowa, and those who weren’t, such as Paul Simon of Illinois in 1988, or Sam Brownback of Kansas in 2008, didn’t get that far on proximity (not to mention Iowa’s own Tom Vilsack in 2008, who dropped out after regularly finishing fourth in Iowa polls). Indeed, Iowans are acutely conscious of their role in national presidential politics, and will go a long way to show they are not provincial: that, far more than home-state proximity to Iowa, had a lot to do with Obama’s 2008 Caucus win.
Now perhaps TimPaw should be worried about possible rivals like Thune on grounds that his very slim hopes depend on a relatively limited field heavily dominated by retreads, with no other “dark horse” prospects to divvy up the votes of those looking for something new. But I’d say John Thune is very far down the list of problems “looming” over the Minnesotan’s campaign.
I mention (and mock) this piece because it exemplifies a type of horse-race coverage based not so much on facts and logic and precedent than on sorting through insider rumors and buzz and spin and implicitly telling Beltway genuises their own internal primary is the one that matters most: the primary in which Haley Barbour is a potential front-runner because he’s good at shaking down donors and gives a good interview, even though his national voter appeal is dubious by any standard.
Both Thune and Tim Paw have a long way to go before they should be considered serious presidential candidates. Until then, their position is best described by the old saying: “If I had some ham, I could make a ham sandwich, if I had some bread.”

You will be hearing a cacaphony of conservative talk over the holidays and beyond about today’s ruling by District Court Judge Henry Hudson that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate for health insurance purchasing violates the U.S. Constitution.
Two other district judges, of course (one in Hudson’s own Virginia) have already ruled otherwise, and it’s obvious the issue will ultimately be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it’s important for progressives to understand that if five votes on the High Court are found for Hudson’s point of view, it will represent a major counter-revolution in Constitutional law, back towards the early 1930s jurisprudence that once threatened to thwart the entire New Deal.
Thus, today’s conservative celebration of the alleged triumph of constitutionalism against the grasping big government expansionism of Obama and Pelosi is a deliberate distortion of the historical record, much like claims that contemporary conservatives are just common-sense centrists fighting the sudden and dangerous socialist radicalism of a Democratic Party gone wild.
Conservatives have every right to articulate their own views on the Constitution and every other topic. But they need to own up to–or be exposed for–the not-so-traditional conservatism they represent: a revolt against the regulated capitalism and mild welfare-state practices of the last 75 years, which few Republicans other than a radical fringe have challenged in the recent past.

In his interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senator Dick Durbin came up with what could serve as an apt political catch-phrase for the holiday season: “…We’ve got to eat the spinach and keep moving on.” Durbin’s remark provides a timely reminder that (political) life sometimes presents unpalatable choices, but there comes a time when the choice must be made to avert even more unpleasant outcomes.
The Deal is expected to pass the Senate today. I hope the House will be able to compell the Republicans to accept at least some tax increases for the very wealthy, doubtful as it looks at present. We do have to ‘walk the walk’ as a Party that not only gives lip service to the principles of tax fairness and fiscal responsibility, but actually stands for them, if we are ever going to win the consistent support of the middle class.
Many progressives are ticked at the President for his leadership in creating this situation. I know he’s privy to all kinds of inside political and economic information I’ll never see. But I’ll never be sure he negotiated the best possible deal. The Republicans may hang tough in opposing even a modest tax hike for millionaires, but we sure as hell ought to at least try to make them accept one.
Still, it’s a high stakes gamble to leave it all up to the next congress, in which the Republican-controlled House could pass an even more reactionary tax bill, force the Senate to accept most of it, and then hold extension of unemployment benefits and other Democratic priorities hostage. I’ve yet to see a convincing argument that it couldn’t get worse if Dems stiff The Deal.
Obama may go down as “the spinach President.” He made enraged Republicans eat their spinach on health care reform, because something had to be done for the good of the country, as well as the uninsured, since health care was taking an unacceptably large bite out of GDP, in the range of 20 percent compared to 10 percent in other industrial nations, damaging our competitiveness. Now he’s coaxing angry progressives to eat their spinach, because he believes, wrongly or rightly, that this is the best tax deal available under present political circumstances.
if the current controversy means that President Obama could be a one-termer, it appears he is willing to make the sacrifice to do what he believes is right. The scariest statistic I’ve seen recently comes from Robert Creamer’s reminder in the post below that, “After all, no president has been reelected in the last century when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent.”
Thus a lot is riding on the prompt extension of unemployment benefits and increased economic stimulus, however adequate, is even more urgently needed to get the unemployment rate down as quickly as possible. Republicans know it and they will delay any cash infusion into the economy as much as they can if The Deal fails. Obama has busted historical precedent before. But it would be folly to expect re-election with the national unemployment rate north of 8 percent.
If the sharpest political strategists on the Hill determine that we can’t make the Republicans accept even a modest tax hike for the rich, by all means grumble, gripe and complain. But at that point, pass the spinach — and quickly.

Public opinion about important issues like the START Treaty, DADT repeal, the Dream Act are being overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the tax cut deal. That’s probably fortunate for conservatives, because opinion data indicates quite clearly that their positions on these key issues is way out of line with the public’s views, as TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira reports in his current ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages:

Consider these results from a new Gallup poll where the public was asked how they would vote on various issues if these issues as well as the candidates were on the ballot on Election Day. The public “voted” by 67-28 in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
And 54 percent of the public said they were in favor of allowing the illegal immigrants who came to this country as children to become legal if they attend college or join the military, compared to 42 percent who were opposed.
Finally, the public said they would vote to ratify the New START treaty with Russia by 21 points, 51-30.

In keeping with the holiday season, no doubt conservatives will be talking up the virtues of peace and brotherhood. Just don’t expect them to do anything to make it a reality when the opportunity is presented.

This post by Democratic strategist and TDS advisory board member and contributor Mike Lux, author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, is cross posted from Open Left.
Rather than writing just another blog post today, I am feeling the need to write an open letter to the President.
Dear Mr. President,
I think I speak for a lot of folks in writing this letter, although I readily admit that some of my progressive friends have given up on you and are talking about a primary challenge, and others still support you strongly no matter what. But there are a lot of us who find ourselves genuinely conflicted about your Presidency and your relationship with the progressive community.
Like millions of other Democrats, I went all out for you in the campaign, giving money, knocking on doors, making phone calls, being involved in groups who were helping you, helping out in every other way I could think of to help. Like hundreds of thousands of other progressive activists, I have spent many hours and given much money over the last two years working on behalf of your stimulus package, your health care reform bill, and your financial reform bill. Having lived through the Jimmy Carter years, when Carter governed as a moderate and was challenged in many different ways by progressives yet was still successfully labeled a liberal by Republicans, I have written time and time and again that progressives’ fate is inextricably linked to your fate whether either of us wants it to be, and that progressives should do whatever we can to make you a successful President. And I still believe that. No one wants you to succeed more than I do.
So here I am, along with so many others, out here fighting- really fighting- for everything you say you believe in. On health care, you said you were for a public option, for negotiating drug prices on Medicare, against taxing workers’ health care benefits, and that is what I and so many others who are your supporters fought for. On taxes, you said you were against the wealthiest of Americans having their Bush tax cuts extended, and that is what your supporters fought against. On these and so many other issues, we have fought by your side for what you said you were for.

Read more…

This item is cross-posted from The New Republic.
America has always been a libertarian country–and right now, the suspicion of authority that defines our culture and politics seems particularly strong. By huge margins, Americans say they do not trust the federal government. On both the left and the right, conspiracy theories abound regarding the nefarious designs of power-mad politicians, colluding with the rich and well-connected to steal the freedoms of ordinary individuals.
Yet, as we debate several issues that touch on privacy and disclosure–including the White House’s response to Julian Assange and the rise of airport body-scanners–it’s worth remembering that the American public doesn’t necessarily value individual liberties at the expense of national security. The message sent by the limited public polling on Wikileaks is pretty clear, as illustrated by very recent findings from CBS/New York Times: When asked if there is a public right to know what government does, even in the defense of national security, nearly three-fourths of respondents said they did not have the right to know some things. Despite saturation news coverage of the Wikileaks controversy over an extended period of time, along with impassioned media debates about the implications, 52 percent of respondents said they knew little or nothing about it. And among the minority that had followed the story, by a two-to-one margin respondents were more concerned about the impact on U.S. interests than on individual rights.
The polling on body scanners shows a similar bias toward national security over individual rights. A USA Today/Gallup survey in late November showed respondents by a 71-27 margin accepting a “loss of personal privacy” in exchange for a perceived improvement in the ability to stop terrorists. And the public has consistently opposed, by a 60-39 margin in one March 2010 poll, Obama administration plans to close Guantanamo Bay and try terrorism suspects in civil courts.
Likewise, during the Bush years, few issues aroused the passions of the progressive blogosphere more than the administration’s pursuit of warrantless wiretaps. The public? Not so much. While polling on the subject varied according to the way questions were framed, a January 2006 CBS/New York Times survey was typical. At a time when George W. Bush’s job approval rating was an anemic 42 percent, respondents still favored the warrantless wiretapping program by a 53-46 margin, with only 22 percent saying they were following the story closely.
What explains this curiously illiberal libertarianism? I’d suggest two causes, neither of them things progressives much want to admit about their fellow countrymen.
First, while the concept of a global war on terrorism is treated as mildly ridiculous by most foreign policy wonks, a majority of Americans still seem to believe in it. Polls consistently show that Americans think of terrorism suspects as enemy combatants, and of terrorists as a major threat to the country’s national security. So they do not worry much about the risks of arguably illegal or even unconstitutional steps to fight, interrogate, or punish possible terrorists.
Second, despite a century of liberal efforts to encourage the idea that restraints on government at home and abroad should operate according to principles applied uniformly in all circumstances, many Americans simply don’t buy the idea of universal human rights or the equality of nations and their citizens. Polls about airline security consistently show strong support for passenger profiling; a recent ABC/Washington Post survey found 70 percent favoring the general idea of profiling, with 55 percent supporting profiling based on nationality and 40 percent on race.
You could blame this on simple bigotry, but the truth is probably more complicated: As Walter Russell Mead wrote in a famous 1999 essay, the libertarianism of the American public is not the libertarianism of the ACLU. Instead, it reflects an ambivalent populist tradition that strongly values equality and liberty–but only among those perceived as productive, law-abiding Americans. When faced with security threats from people who appear to be “aliens” or “outsiders,” however, many Americans are likely to favor a remorseless, take-no-prisoners hostility that takes precedent over liberal and libertarian principles. Even if you don’t agree with everything Mead wrote, there is little doubt that this mindset has exerted a strong undertow throughout U.S. history.
Civil libertarians often tend to assume Americans are being brainwashed or turned against their own values on subjects like warrantless wiretapping and military tribunals and Wikileaks. Most of the available evidence, historical and contemporary, suggests otherwise. And when the Obama administration chooses–for example–to hunt down Julian Assange or limit disclosure of sensitive “national security” information, it’s tapping into a very strong tradition which Americans tend to support, even as they say they revere the Bill of Rights.

The following post, by TDS contributor Robert Creamer, a democratic political strategist/organizer and author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Behind any big historic political bargain there are usually big, bottom-line self interests. The case of the tax deal negotiated by the Democratic White House and Republican Leadership is no exception.
The president woke up the day after the fall election facing a serious political and economic dilemma. Back in 2008 Democrats won voters who reported that their personal economic situation was worse by a margin of 40 percent. In 2010 Democrats lost that same cohort of voters by 29 percent. From the standpoint of swing voters, the election was all about one thing: the voter’s feelings that their own personal economic outlook was bleak.
To win reelection in 2012, the president had to do something to substantially improve economic growth in general and job creation in particular. That translated into the need for more economic stimulus to jump start sustained economic growth.
But the outcome of the election had also made the prospects that the new Congress would pass new economic stimulus remote. The Republicans who would control the House had no interest whatsoever in providing more economic stimulus. That’s not mainly because they have a different economic philosophy. It’s primarily because they have no political interest in near term economic recovery. It’s just fine with them if the economy continues a slow slog, and the jobless rate is 8 percent or 9 percent in November 2012. After all, no president has been reelected in the last century when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent. Reagan was reelected in 1984 with a 7.2 percent unemployment rate, but at the time of the election, unemployment appeared to be — and was — in sharp decline.
And the smartest among the Republicans realize that left to itself, the economy will not reignite without additional stimulus. In fact, around the world over the last century — after the five major recessions or depressions caused by the collapse of financial markets — the jobless rates of the economies involved have never returned to pre-crash levels for at least five years.
Without a major infusion of more stimulus, the Obama administration saw very little to convince it that the U.S. economy would defy that history. The president’s major bottom-line self interest: more stimulus to spur economic growth and job creation.
The Republican bottom-line self interest is very different. While the president’s self interests align directly with those of the vast majority of the American people, the Republicans’ self interests do not. Not only do they have a short term political interest in low levels of job creation. Their core constituency — the tiny sliver of super-wealthy Americans — has been completely insulated from the effects of the long term effects of the Great Recession. Corporate profits and Wall Street bonuses have now exceeded pre-recession levels. The stock market is back. And the fact that there are five job seekers for every available job drives down wages. In fact, it’s all a “robber barron’s dream.”
Over the long run, a low wage economy with high unemployment is not sustainable and will do enormous damage even to the biggest corporations. But short term, greed tends to block out long term concerns, so the wealthy — and their Republican Party — aren’t so much concerned about long term economic growth.
But they are very concerned about an immediate threat to their fortunes — the prospect that the Bush tax cuts will expire at the end of this year, and they will be subject to the tax rates of the Clinton era. Let’s recall that for the entire economy, the Clinton era — when the rich paid those Clinton era tax rates — was the most prosperous period in human history. But that doesn’t matter to the Republicans and their wealthy backers. They want more — now.
Not only are they worried that the Bush tax cuts will expire. The wealthiest families are also gravely concerned that if nothing is done, the inheritance tax is scheduled to return to its 2001 level. The consensus position among Democrats is that the inheritance tax — which by definition impacts only the sons and daughters of multimillionaires — should exclude estates worth up to $3.5 million for individuals and $7 million for couples. But that the remainder should be taxed at 45 percent. Republican Senator Kyl wants the threshold raised to $5 million for individuals and $10 million for couples. More importantly from the standpoint of the very rich, he wants the rate lowered to 35 percent.
To gauge the importance of this proposal for the very rich consider the situation of a one of the rare families with an estate of a billion dollars. To them this change would be worth $100 million dollars that either does or does not flow into the pockets of the silver spoon crowd. That will give you a sense of why what happens to the inheritance tax really matters for the super-wealthy core constituency of the Republican Party.
So the core interest of the Republicans is: tax breaks for the very rich.
The tax deal addresses each of these two core interests. It gives the Republicans tax breaks for the rich. And It gives the president and Democrats a major shot of economic stimulus that they — and average Americans really need. All told the package costs $900 billion over two years. About 60 percent to 75 percent of that could be considered real stimulus, since the balance goes to the rich and has very little stimulative effect. But the money for $70 billion or so of unemployment compensation, the $120 billion for a payroll tax holiday, and the extension of middle class tax cuts — including the refundable tax cuts from in the original Obama stimulus program — actually do have increase aggregate economic demand.
Now with the exception of unemployment compensation — which most economists think generates two dollars of GDP growth for every dollar of spending — many of the other provisions are not as stimulative as infrastructure construction, a direct federal jobs program, etc. But they definitely increase growth. According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the package may generate or save up to 2.2 million jobs. And most importantly, these measures are far better than no stimulus at all.
The Republicans have basically held the rest of the country — and economic growth — hostage to their demand for two years worth of tax breaks for the super-rich, it’s that simple. That has infuriated progressives — and it should.
But that is the basis for the tax deal. It meets to the core, overriding self interests of each of the two protagonists.
Hopefully, the House, and progressives in the Senate, may be successful at demanding improvements in the package — reducing for instance the outrageous giveaways to the super rich in the two year estate tax provision. The House Democratic Caucus has voted not to consider the tax deal in its current form, but to continue to negotiate to “improve the proposal that comes to the House floor for a vote”. House leaders are taking a firm stand for progressive values.
At the same time, many progressives realize that in the end it is certainly in the interests of progressives, who want to succeed over the next two years, to pass some package that allows a significant economic stimulus before Republicans take control of the House and make it ever so much more difficult.
Without new stimulus to the economy, the odds are very high that we will face defeat in November 2012, it’s that simple.

The political predicament facing Dems as a result of the GOP-Obama tax cut deal provides yet another example of how the threat of a filibuster frustrates Democratic reforms and undermines democracy. The House passed a perfectly reasonable tax bill, the provisions of which are supported by a majority of Americans in opinion poll data. A majority of the Senate supports it, but the bill is dumped because it doesn’t have 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and avoid the threat of a filibuster.
The distinction between the threat of a filibuster and an actual filibuster is important,as Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect explains in his post, “Challenging the Filibuster Old Guard: A new group of Democratic senators is poised to challenge the filibuster in the next term.” Says Fernholz in this excerpt:

“By a vote of 53 to 36, the Senate defeated a proposal to extend tax cuts first on those earning up to $250,000 in income,” Capitol Hill’s Roll Call explained over the weekend. It was a typical Senate defeat, where a majority supported the losing measure and a minority achieved a filibustered veto.
It’s been well observed in Washington that it doesn’t cost much to filibuster: Senators don’t have to speak or stay on the floor of the Senate. They only need to say a few words to their leaders, and the whole institution grinds to a halt. The public, of course, doesn’t see that level of detail, which makes things difficult for those interested in reform — but that could change.

Fernholz reports that Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has accepted the challenge to provide the needed leadership for filibuster reform:

Merkley has floated a proposal to reform the filibuster by forcing senators to actually take to the floor to obstruct Senate debate and by limiting the number of times the maneuver can be used to stop a piece of legislation. He and several allies hope it will win the support of 51 senators when the new Congress comes into session in January, the easiest time to amend the Senate’s rules.

Such measure, if adopted, would drastically reduce the use of the filibuster, the threat of which is deployed more than twice a week on average, compared to about three times a year back in the 1960’s, according to Fernholz. He reports that Sen Dodd and other “institutionalists” oppose reform, basically because they feel it weakens Senate power relative to the House.
But Merkley responds,

This is not the framework in which anyone who cares about the function of the institution would feel like the institution is functioning well…If we turn the clock back 30 years … senators understood that for them, individually, to hold up the work of the Senate, it had to be an issue of profound importance to the nation. That understanding is gone.

On Jan 5th Sen Tom Udall will try to bring a filibuster reform measure to the senate floor, reports Fernholz. But it too can be filibustered, with two-thirds of ‘those present and voting’ needed to invoke cloture on a rule change. Despite the concerns of the “institutionalists,” Democrats should support it. It’s just unacceptable that nothing can pass without 60 senate votes, and this is one of the few measures that might be able to help.
Some Dems may argue that we could lose a lot of senate seats in ’12, since we have 21 senators (plus 2 pro-Dem Independents) up for re-election and the GOP has only 10. We could also lose the presidency, in which case the filibuster begins to look like a tool we can use to obstruct Republican legislation, including the gutting of health care reform. It’s a solid argument, as far as it goes.
The fact remains, however, that Democratic prospects for enacting significant reforms that reflect progressive values are slim, as long as the opposition can trot out the mere threat of a filibuster to obstruct any legislation they don’t like. Reforms supported by the Democratic Party are being held hostage by the threat of filibusters, and we need to put an end to it.
Yes, the GOP is enjoying the benefits of filibuster threats right now, because it serves their obstructionist agenda. But, looking forward, some of them have to be thinking “we could have a majority in both houses, plus the presidency after the ’12 election. Then the filibuster is our problem, so maybe changing the rules now is our best option for enacting our legislative agenda.” Some GOP votes in favor of Merkley’s proposal are not out of the question.
The old JFK adage (borrowed from a Chinese proverb) about every crisis presenting both dangers and opportunities applies nicely at this twilight political moment, when partisan power distribution is fairly equal, but in flux.
There are other possible routes to filibuster reform, including reducing the number needed to invoke cloture or even abolishing the filibuster altogether. But right now Merkley’s proposal is the one that seems to have the energy behind it. We may not get another chance for a long time.

The manuevering in Washington over the tax agreement negotiated between the White House and Mitch McConnell grew even more complex today, with the House Democratic Caucus agreeing to a resolution to oppose the deal as announced, and the Senate apparently on the brink of approving the deal.
Here’s how the ever-astute Brian Beutler of TPM sought to explain the House Democratic action:

At a private meeting of the Democratic caucus this morning, members overwhelmingly rejected the idea that the plan is inviolable by passing a resolution agreeing not to bring up the tax package without changing it first. However, the White House and Republicans insist that the plan is in stone — and any changes would likely prompt a GOP backlash.
The Senate could adopt the proposal as early as tonight, leaving House Democrats a choice between swallowing it, modifying it, or rejecting it and starting from scratch.
After the meeting, though, members and aides stressed that future steps are unclear, and were unable to say that the White House plan won’t pass the House untouched.

In other words, it’s not at all clear what House Dems are actually trying to accomplish, and it may well be the “no-confidence vote” that passed was designed to appeal to Members with wildly different understandings of what will happen next. It may also transpire that the maneuver was a bluff design to test whether Republicans are willing to make some last-minute concessions that will make Democrats feel less like chumps.
To the extent that the deal’s provisions on the estate tax seem to be feeding a lot of progressive angst, it’s worth noting that this is one area of tax policy where there is a vast, unbridgeable gap between most Democrats and virtually all Republicans. GOPers think of the “death tax” as inherently evil, and thought its demise was sure when the initial legislation phasing it down and out was enacted. Progressive Democrats tend to regard the estate tax as one of the few progressive levies with zero negative macroeconomic effects, and are outraged that concessions benefitting a small handful of the super-rich, with no economic payoff at all, would be considered during these negotiations.
Beyond the dialogue of the deaf on this subject, the prospects for a renegotiation of the tax deal depend on some pretty speculatative ideas about which side might blink first, and also are vulnerable to a reaction in the financial markets. It’s reasonably safe to assume that hardly anyone wants to begin 2011 with higher tax rates on nearly all Americans and big drops in stock prices. But it’s less clear which side could be confident the other side would get the blame if that happens. The most convincing argument among progressives is that the vote on tax extensions should have been held before the midterms. But the future of this dispute remains much murkier than its past.