The president has already agreed to a deal I don't like

By Frank Moraes 

I saw a bit of The Ed Show last night as I was making dinner. Ed Schultz said something that shocked me. I don't have the exact quote, but it was more or less, "I know that the president isn't going to agree to any deal that we don't like." I could hardly believe it. Did he really just say that? After chained-CPI and $400,000 lower limit for tax increases? Maybe by "we" he meant "multi-millionaires on TV." Because the only liberals who expect Obama not to make a very bad deal are liberals who aren't paying attention. 

In the same segment, he talked about how Boehner's "Plan B" (That's the name of a birth control pill, right?) would raise taxes on the poor and middle classes because of other tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill. Greg Sargent deals with this in detail in an article earlier today at The Plum Line blog, John Boehner, Scourge of the Wealthy, Ctd. ("Ctd." means "continued" because of a previous article.) He shows that half of the households in the top 1% would get a tax break. So this is not a serious plan.

But there is a lot more to be upset about. For years, Digby has been (rightly) screaming about the fact that the "balanced" approach involves painful cuts for the poor and "tip money" for the rich. This chained-CPI makes it even worse. Of course, this is a major and increasing cut to Social Security. But it is also a major and increasing tax increase on the middle class.

Our only hope is that the Republicans continue to be as stupid and greedy as usual. Because, regardless of what Ed Schultz says, the president will most definitely agree to a deal that we don't like. And by "we" I mean all of us: even the vast majority of conservatives, even if they don't know it.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)