(Community Matters) I’ve come around on the tax compromise for reasons in my earlier postings.
And, I’m getting agitated by increasing arrogance among supposed centrist Democrats arguing liberals are on our last leg, have over reached, are unrealistic, etc. First, who doesn’t over reach? Second, give everyone a chance to react, breath, better understand and regroup. Third, independent voters are nothing to us without the base – work just as hard to keep the base as we do to attract additional allies.
Politico:
For some Democrats, the histrionics would be funny if they weren’t so potentially devastating politically. While liberal activists, commentators and lawmakers believe they need to take a tougher stand on taxes and other issues, others argue strenuously that it’s independent voters Obama and his party must recapture to win in 2012 and beyond.Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46254.html#ixzz17l92myoO
for nearly two decades, Democrats have been asking how can working class, mostly non-college grads continue supporting the GOP when doing so works against their interests. I’m a centrist on many issues, a liberal on others. I’m not about to take for granted the liberal base of this party and suggest my colleagues don’t either.
Community Matters 
Is this really a Liberal/Moderate/Conservative thing? I’ve never considered myself liberal or Democrat and I oppose this. The Tea Party folks, whose incoherent ideology might vaguely be called conservative – I don’t see them as being crazy about this deal either.
Plus, as you have correctly pointed out on this blog, Obama has never really been a liberal. He’s a pragmatist, not an ideologue, which is one reason I like him. It’s a big reason President Obama is better than Candidate Obama (the campaign had all that over-the-top rhetoric about Hope and Change).
I also realize it’s counterproductive to try to reduce the deficit during a bad recession, a lesson America learned in the 1930s. My only question is: are tax rates ever going to return to a responsible level? The Grover Norquist crowd ALWAYS wants to cut them further, no matter the fiscal situation of the country.
In 2000 the federal government more or less had a balanced budget. The next decade saw an enormous raid on the Treasury by the wealthy in the form of irresponsible tax cuts. 2010 might be the wrong year to bring tax rates back to normal, but when will the right year ever arrive? (And I have no desire to raise taxes on high income people to punish them for making money. This is not your dreaded populism.)
Of course I’m not a mega-genius like the Journalists at The Economist and the experts in the Treasury Department. I guess mere mortals are too dumb to understand how this all will work.