Wednesday, November 08, 2006
More on the Elections
A point Bruce Bartlett makes about the Democrats now that they control the legislative branch:
They’re going to be under a lot of pressure, their candidates for president, to do certain things. A number of the Democratic candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, are in the Senate, where they’re in the position on a day-to-day basis to shape political strategy on legislation in ways they view as helpful to them, or harmful to their opponents. On things like the deficit, unless the Democrats are willing to go after taxes and talk explicitly about raising them, their hands are as tied as the Republicans’ are. How they deal with that, and how they show some movement without losing credibility, or alienating constituencies, is to me a very difficult problem. They’re going to have their hands full.
Iran moves to the top of the list. Sure, everyone loves multilateralism, but Democrats also made a point of running to Bush's right on the Iran issue. So when negotiations fail, or other states say, we can live with Iran having a nuclear program, what will Democrats do? Support more unilateral action? Military force?
They’re going to be under a lot of pressure, their candidates for president, to do certain things. A number of the Democratic candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, are in the Senate, where they’re in the position on a day-to-day basis to shape political strategy on legislation in ways they view as helpful to them, or harmful to their opponents. On things like the deficit, unless the Democrats are willing to go after taxes and talk explicitly about raising them, their hands are as tied as the Republicans’ are. How they deal with that, and how they show some movement without losing credibility, or alienating constituencies, is to me a very difficult problem. They’re going to have their hands full.
Iran moves to the top of the list. Sure, everyone loves multilateralism, but Democrats also made a point of running to Bush's right on the Iran issue. So when negotiations fail, or other states say, we can live with Iran having a nuclear program, what will Democrats do? Support more unilateral action? Military force?
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For the Dems on the tax issue, they don't even have to tackle that one: just wait for the current tax law to expire in 2009 (I think it's 2009). They won't give Bush the "permanent tax cut" he wants now. They can quietly just ignore this and hope they win (or maintain their new seat count) in 2008...and just let that die, right? it'll be an automatic tax hike on those that got the major benefits in the earlier years.
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: 4:37 PM
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