The New York Times is reporting on a Net Neutrality proposal FCC chair Julius Genachowksi is floating in the lead up to a December 21 meeting of the commission when they might decide on regulating Internet broadband providers. The initial outline is disappointing, at best.

In a speech he plans to give Wednesday in Washington, Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman, will outline a framework for broadband Internet service that forbids both wired and wireless Internet service providers from blocking lawful content. But the proposal would allow broadband providers to charge consumers different rates for different levels of service, according to a text of the speech provided to The New York Times.

Mr. Genachowski has decided not to use the commission’s telephone regulatory powers to govern broadband Internet service, a move that he proposed in May that would potentially open Internet service to heavier government regulation.

His proposal would also allow broadband providers to manage their networks to limit congestion or harmful traffic....

For wireless broadband, the fastest-growing segment of the industry, the proposal includes a transparency requirement and "a basic no-blocking rule" covering Web sites and certain applications that compete with services that the broadband provider also offers.

But Mr. Genachowski says he recognizes "differences between fixed and mobile broadband," and therefore will allow for flexibility for wireless rules. But he said he planned to "address anticompetitive or anticonsumer behavior as appropriate."

This isn't Net Neutrality. Free Press's Josh Silver details the ways in which it falls far short of what's necdessary to protect the open Internet, based on what the Times has reported.

According to the Times, the proposal:

• Fails to restore the FCC's authority over Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast and AT&T. This presents the unnecessary risk that the new rules, if passed, will be swiftly rejected by the courts. Any other future rules related to the Internet, such as competition policy (which would give you more choices than your expensive monopoly cable and phone company) would suffer the same fate if the chairman continues to avoid the politically challenging but absolutely essential moves that would restore his agency's authority.
• Offers weak protections against "paid prioritization." That is, it could allow ISPs to create tolls on the open Internet that would favor the traffic of a select few who could pay by slowing down the traffic of everyone else. Worse yet, it opens a loophole for "specialized services" that could lead to the creation of a new "private Internet" for a few giant media companies. You might remember that idea as one of the worst ones in the Google-Verizon pact last summer.
• Fails to make even Genachowski's tepid protections apply to wireless connections using mobile devices. With the inevitable explosion of super-fast wireless Internet connections during the next decade, it represents the most blatant sellout to the likes of Verizon and AT&T. Both companies view wireless Internet and phone service as the future. And both companies are among Washington's biggest spenders on PR firms, lobbyists and campaign contributions.

Genachowski needs three votes on the commission to pass this. If previous statements are a guide, this isn't good enough for strong Net Neutrality proponents and Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Michael Copps. They could--and should--hold out for much stronger Internet protections, the kinds of protections both Genachowski and then candidate Obama promised.

We've got three weeks to convince the FCC to do better. Sign this petition to tell Genachowski he needs to keep his and President Obama's promise, and keep the Internet open.

Texas Republicans are hell-bent on opting their state out of Medicaid. And while most pretend the move wouldn't have any effect on their least fortunate, at least one Republican is honest about it:

ome Republicans who talk about Texas potentially opting out of Medicaid are quick to say the changes wouldn't throw people out on the street — but not House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts.

Pitts didn't advocate the change in health care for the poor at a meeting of the Ellis County Tea Party, just noted that it will be discussed by lawmakers.

But unlike others who've painted a rosy picture of a potential health-care restructuring without filling in the details, Pitts gave a stark answer when an audience member asked about an ill friend who is on Medicaid.

The questioner reacted with concern when Pitts said the state's looking at getting out of the program. What will my friend do then? Will you throw him out in the street?

“If we did exactly what we're doing today, we wouldn't be throwing him out in the street. But if we have any savings in getting out of Medicaid, we will have to throw some people out in the street,” said Pitts, R-Waxahachie. He noted, “I'm not telling you that your friend would be.”

Remember, Pitts was speaking at a Tea Party event in his district. Ironic, huh? But of course, that teabagger's friend is one of those people who deserve the federal assistance (like all those teabaggers on Medicare-funded scooters).

These people are going to get exactly the government they fought for and voted for.

This is kind of embarrassing.

A food safety bill that has burned up precious days of the Senate's lame-duck session appears headed back to the chamber because Democrats violated a constitutional provision requiring that tax provisions originate in the House.

By pre-empting the House's tax-writing authority, Senate Democrats appear to have touched off a power struggle with members of their own party in the House....

Section 107 of the bill includes a set of fees that are classified as revenue raisers, which are technically taxes under the Constitution. According to a House GOP leadership aide, that section has ruffled the feathers of Ways and Means Committee Democrats, who are expected to use the blue slip process to block completion of the bill.

All made doubly bad by the fact that Harkin warned the Senate about passing an amendment to the bill that would have repealed the controversial 1099 filing provision for small business in the Affordable Care Act. Senators on both sides of the aise wanted to use this bill as the vehicle for the repeal, but it failed for various reason that David details in the linked post. Harkin opposed putting this amendment in this bill because of precisely this reason: it would have violated the constitutional requirement that tax provisions originate in the House. Oops.

As it stands now, the House is going to have to pass a new version of the bill this week to send back to the Senate.

The Iowa Democrat said that he has spoken with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other House Democratic leaders and that he hopes the chamber will pass a new version of the bill to send to the Senate before the end of the week.

“We’re working on it now. I think we can get it done soon ... hopefully before the end of the week,” said Harkin, who authored the bill’s language.

But he acknowledged that Republicans could filibuster the measure, forcing Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to file cloture and burn several more days on a measure that has already consumed much of the lame-duck session.

Fun times.

C-SPAN's microphones capture Sen. Michael Bennet venting to Sen. Amy Klobuchar about the Senate's  lame-duck session in what he had thought was a private conversation. "The whole conversation's rigged," Bennet said. "The fact that we don't get a discussion before the break about what we're going to do in the lame duck -- it's just rigged. This stuff's rigged."

When you've got one U.S. Senator saying to another U.S. Senator that our political system is rigged, you know the system isn't working.

Matt Yglesias has an amazing graph:

So, over the next 10 years, the catfood commission plan would increase public debt when compared to current law (assuming Bush tax cuts expire). Yglesias comments:

Obviously starting around 2020 or so Bowles-Simpson starts doing better than current law, but it’s difficult for the current congress to tie the hands of future congress. After all, the whole point of the “alternative fiscal scenario” baseline is that past law doesn’t bind the hands of the current congress. The AFS [CBO Alternative Fiscal Scenario] is preferred my many as more politically realistic than the current law baseline, which is fair enough. But wouldn’t it be easier politically to stick with current law than to do Simpson-Bowles’ huge series of unpopular changes? After all, the American political system has a ton of veto points. Barack Obama saying “I will veto any laws that increase the deficit relative to current law” would do more to reduce the debt over the next 2 or 6 years than would adopting Simpson-Bowles.

Obama would actually have to start vetoing any of those laws for that kind of threat to work, as we've seen how effective his threats to Republicans have been for the past two years, but aside from that, increasing the debt burden over the next decade, coupled with slim chances for economic recovery in the next few years, doesn't make sense.

That must have been quite some memo the Republicans sent around. Getting everybody in the party to toe the line is nothing new for the GOP, of course. But the ability to get one elected Republican after another to shamelessly overcome the barrage of cognitive dissonance that comes with shooting down extended unemployment benefits because they cost too much while demanding an extension of millionaire tax cuts is remarkable.

Not that all Republicans have any familiarity with cognitive dissonance. Certainly, Mike Pence - the Representative from Indiana's 6th District who is testing the presidential waters - seems not to.

In an interview with fellow Republican Joe Scarborough today, Pence suggested that Americans who have been out-of-work for more than six months will benefit more from millionaire tax cuts than they will from having their unemployment compensation benefits extended.

HALPERIN: If your leaders came to you and said, "We have a deal with the White House. We're going to extend unemployment benefits, but the tax cuts for the people making over a million dollars a year will not be extended, but that helps to pay for it," would you take deal? Would you vote for that package?

PENCE: Look, I think the worst thing you could do for people that are struggling in this economy and looking for a job is raising taxes on any American. We don't wanna help with one hand and take away with another.

HALPERIN: Would you rather extend the tax cuts for every American, including those making over a million, or have the unemployment benefits extended if that's the choice?

PENCE: [Laughs] Yeah, good. This isn't a corner, but I feel the paint. You know? I'm good, nice move. I played chess with my son the other day and I lost, so, you know, I'm not good at this chess thing. [Laughs] Let me tell you, I think the minimum that we have to do right now for Americans that are struggling in unemployment in this economy is make sure that no American sees a tax increase.  

There are a lot of things besides chess the Congressman is not good at. Economics being high on the list. As Amanda Terkel reported Monday, Pence has repeatedly called for a flat tax, most recently this week at the Detroit Economics Club. He also wants to return to the gold standard.

There's the solution for all you out-of-work Americans losing your benefit checks: Buy gold. Next thing you know you'll be one of those millionaires whose continued well-being the GOP is determined to shield from Bolshevik tax schemes.
= = =

^{h/t to Media Matters.}

As Joan already blogged, The Catfood Commission, also known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, released a list of budget recommendations today. (59-page PDF) In terms of process, here is what happens next:

1. The commission will not issue a final report
While the members of the deficit commission will vote on today’s recommendations on Friday, when they do so they will just be 18 people holding a vote on something, and not the formal deficit commission created by President Obama. This is because the deficit commission ceases to exist at midnight, tonight. As commission co-chair Alan Simpson said:

To those who just wish the commission would go away, Simpson had one bit of good news: “That’s exactly what we’re going to do December 2.”

Further, the by-laws of the commission state:

The Commission shall vote on the approval of a final report containing a set of recommendations to achieve the objectives set forth in the Charter no later than December 1, 2010. The issuance of a final report of the Commission shall require the approval of not less than 14 of the 18 members of the Commission.

With the vote pushed to Friday, there will not be a final report from the commission. Instead, 18 people will simply say if they like the commission’s recommendations or not.

2. There will never be a Congressional vote on the recommendation package
Even though the commission will not issue a final report, it is still technically possible for Congress to vote on the package of recommendation put forth by the co-chairs. However, while technically possible, this also will not happen. The reason it will not happen is because this is simply a list of recommendations, and not an actual piece of legislation.

Congress has to vote on actual legislation, even when it is voting on symbolic measures like resolutions and “sense of the chamber” stuff. This is why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the Senate will only vote on the package unless it came in the form of legislative language. However, since there is no legislative language to accompany the package of recommendations, and since the commission ceases to exist tomorrow, there will never be a congressional vote on this package of recommendations.

3. Congress will draw up its own budget.
The recommendation package will never be voted on. Instead, the proposals are designed to help swing the political conversation on deficits in favor of the proposals preferred by the two co-chairs, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. The Associated Press paraphrases Bowles admitting as much:

Bowles says it's just as important to have jump-started a national debate on what it'll really take to bring the deficit under control.

So, what will happen is that, in the coming months, the Budget Committees of both chambers of Congress will produce their own proposals for fiscal year 2012. Whether or not this actually includes all, some, or none of the proposals in the Simpson-Bowles recommendations will be entirely coincidental. Congress is going to write this itself, and there will be an epic fight over it. The commission is ultimately immaterial, except as a spin machine and press release factory.

4. Budget Committees will likely propose more severe recommendations.
Now, even though the Budget Committees will do this themselves, and even though the deficit commission is essentially meaningless except as a press release factory, opponents of the Simpson-Bowles proposals should not be comforted. The incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee is Republican Paul Ryan, who opposes the Catfood Commission report because it isn’t cruel enough. In the Senate, the Budget committee will be chaired by North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad, who has endorsed the Simpson-Bowles recommendations.

So, while the deficit commission is ultimately meaningless, the fight over austerity for everyone but the rich still looms large. It’s a difficult road ahead of us, and we need to steel ourselves for the fight.

Brian Beutler:

Kyl: Dems Cave By Monday Or No START Treaty

Republicans say no Senate business until tax cuts are extended and the government is funded -- presumably on terms favorable to the GOP. That apparently includes the START treaty. And now the man leading the resistance to ratifying the treaty during the lame duck says Dems have until Monday to come to terms with Republicans on those two issues.

"If the taxes all can't be resolved and voted on and completed and spending for the government for the next ten months completed by like next Monday, I don't know how there's enough time to complete START," Kyl told The Hill.

Though Kyl's demands may be outrageous, they aren't necessarily crazy. Unless President Obama and congressional Democrats stand up for themselves, there's no reason for Republicans to do anything but keep on taking hostage after hostage.

Sure, there's something unseemly about taking national security hostage. And sure, it's brass-knuckle politics to make a demand like this. But if the lesson that Republicans learn is that this is the kind of politics that works, they are going to keep on doing it, over and over again.

Remember, it's been just 24 hours since yesterday's "bipartisan" meeting and already Republicans are making a mockery of President Obama's show of good faith. Given how bad it already is, just imagine what it'll be like after the next meeting.

• Atrios is exactly right:

  Let Them Expire

  Of course it won't happen, but Dems should just call their bluff and let all the damn tax cuts expire. Then instead of having this political malpractice having a conversation about "extending the Bush tax cuts" Obama can create his own shiny new tax cut plan. Like he should have done 6 months ago.

  Does anybody know what they're doing?

  I know lots of people have been repeating this mantra over and over again, but we'll have to keep repeating it over and over again until someone in the White House realizes that giving Bush positive credit for anything isn't just idiotic, but deprives them of their own credit.

  Let the Bush tax cuts go away. They were designed to do that by Bush and his Republican friends. Then once they're gone, then start working on a new package, and dare the GOP to vote against the Obama Tax Cuts.

  That's what a politically savvy White House and Democratic caucus would do. Instead, we're saddled with the Democrats we have, not the ones we wish we had.

• You can give President Obama a job evaluation here. (It's an OFA survey.)
• The biggest WTF of the day, from a Tweet by WSJ columnist Dennis Berman:

  

  I can't wait to find out why the hell they needed a taxpayer bailout.

• In case you missed it last week, Salon had a list of the Top 30 (political) Hacks.
• While in elections we've seen an age gap on gay-related ballot initiatives, with older folks being less tolerant than the kids, there's no age gap in the Pentagon report on DADT.

  In many survey questions — and there are over 100, many with sub-questions — the demographic gap either wasn’t so wide or didn’t neatly correspond to age. Asked how it affected unit morale to serve alongside a comrade believed to be gay, 56 percent of the youngest troops surveyed, ages 18 to 24 years old, believed it either not to matter or lacked the basis to judge. The same was true of 53.1 percent of the oldest, ages 53 and up.

  Youth and experience found common ground on whether knowing a unit member is gay mattered for performance in combat. Sixty-two percent of 18-to-24 year-olds said they couldn’t tell or it didn’t matter, and 59.1 percent of the eldest troops agreed. Similarly, only 23.1 percent of 18-to-24-year olds said repealing the ban would make it more it more difficult to lead gay troops into combat, and a near-identical minority of the eldest, 24.9 percent, said the same thing. Over 48 percent of the oldest troops said working with gay comrades in a post-repeal military wouldn’t affect their own motivations to serve. That’s almost identical to the 49-percent plurality of 18-to-24 year olds who agree.

  When it came to on-base living, a wide plurality of the eldest servicemembers, 40.2 percent, said they’d “get to know” a same-sex couple stationed at the same base “like any other neighbors.” The same is true of a 43.2-percent plurality of the youngest troops.

• This was brilliant. Too bad the police asked the home owners to take it down.
• In case there was any doubt who's really in charge.

  Citigroup Inc., recovering from its $45 billion bailout in 2008, is in advanced talks to hire former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, people with knowledge of the matter said.

  Orszag, 41, may take a job in the New York-based firm’s investment-banking division, the people said, declining to be identified because the discussions are private. An announcement may come as early as today, one of the people said.

  That's called "rewarding good behavior".

We're all learning a lot about how to reduce the deficit today, aren’t we? Personally, I've learned that if you are the CEO of a company that receive 3,135 federal contracts worth a total of $7,581,183,813 over the past decade, as Honeywell International did, then the Associated Press thinks you are a “deficit hawk.”

Bowles was White House chief of staff when former President Bill Clinton negotiated a balanced budget plan in 1997; Simpson is a former GOP senator from Wyoming. could pick up support from nonelected deficit hawks like Democrat Alice Rivlin and Honeywell International's chief executive, David Cote.

I wanna get 7.6 billion in federal dollars and then get the national press to call me a deficit hawk, too.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty thinks he has a shot at the 2012 Republican nomination for president. What was going to be a long-shot bid is now even more of a long shot.

​Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn't know it to look at the record [...]

That's because two years ago, Governor Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Lori Swanson, and then-Chief Justice Eric Magnuson unanimously voted to wipe Giefer's record clean, granting him a pardon extraordinary.

One reason Giefer wanted his record cleared? His wife wanted to open a childcare center in the house where they live.

Giefer didn't just have sex with that 14-year-old girl, but knocked her up. They ended up getting married, and his former victim/wife is the person wanting to open up that childcare facility. Pawlenty and the rest of the pardon board based their pardon on the bizarre notion that statutory rape was okay if the man sticks around and marries the victim.

That looks terrible enough for a candidate who likes to fashion himself as tough on crime and sexual offenders. But this story gets worse. Much, much worse.

Flash forward to this month, when Giefer was charged with another sex crime, this time for allegedly molesting the daughter he conceived with the underage girl he statutory raped and married.

In fact, the complaint alleges, Giefer had been raping his daughter for about six years when Pawlenty granted him his extraordinary pardon.

According to the complaint filed in Blue Earth County Court, the girl, identified only as C.G.,  told Blue Earth detectives the sexual abuse started when she was nine years old.

"C.G. stated that when she was 13 years old, she wanted to go somewhere; and her dad would tell her to do a sexual favor consisting of a blow job or intercourse and then she would be allowed to go."

Geifer's daughter went into explicit detail with the detectives, painting a vivid picture of routine abuse.

You can follow the link above for more of those graphic details. They are utterly revolting. As for Giefer, initial denials have evolved into prevarications.

Yes, Giefer told a detective, he had put his daughter on birth control pills. Yes, he had grabbed her breasts, but "it was just messing around." Yes, he had exposed his penis to her, but it was "accidental." And yes, while on top of his daughter in her bed while "wrestling," he had kissed her neck and stuck his hand inside her shorts and touched her bare vagina.

Nauseating.

Pawlenty's team put out this statement:

"The Governor has consistently opposed pardons for sex offenders and believes sex offenses are heinous. However, the Board made an exception in this case and voted unanimously to pardon this 1994 conviction because it involved sexual conduct between two people who became husband and wife, maintained a long-term marriage, had a family together, and because the defendant completed his sentence many years before seeking the pardon which his wife and others supported."

Good luck with that bullshit. What's more likely is that Pawlenty now has his very own Willie Horton hanging around his neck. And while it's true, Republicans operate under a different standard than Democrats like Mike Dukakis, we're talking about a sexual predator -- one who wasn't just pardoned because of some bizarre rationalization about marrying his victim, but one who was pardoned so that his wife could open up a childcare facility in the man's own home.

There is no justification for that pardon. None.

Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives plans to vote Thursday to extend middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire on December 31, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Wednesday.

Republicans oppose the legislation and instead want all Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest, to be extended.

Of course, now that the White House and the GOP are both saying they are prepared to extend current tax policy, the real question isn't whether the House approves the middle-class tax cuts -- it's whether the House is prepared to vote against continuing the Bush tax policy.

Update: In an amusing twist, a GOP aide tells NBC's Luke Russert that the vote "clearly violates the spirit of the White House meeting yesterday and undermines efforts to reach a real solution to protect the American people from the January 1 tax hikes." Given that the "real solution" sought by the GOP is a continuation of Bush tax policy, it would be nice if the aide were right. But all indications are that the aide is wrong and Democrats and the White House will agree to continue Bush tax policy for at least three more years.

The individuals and groups behind "Our Fiscal Security" are holding a press conference now to answer the catfood commission recommendations released today. Speakers will include Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz; Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic & Policy Research; Nancy Altman, Co-Director, Social Security Works; John Irons, Research & Policy Director, Economic Policy Institute; and Robert Kuttner, Co-Founder and Co-Editor, The American Prospect.

They will respond to the commission's recommendations by outlining their own proposals, from The Citizens' Commission and the fiscal blueprint from Demos, Economic Policy Institute, and the Century Foundation. These plans would on regrow our economy by investing in jobs first, getting the nation back to work.

You can watch it at DKTV or right here:

Tamara Draut, Vice President of Policy and Programs at Demos, provided a written response to the plan this morning.

"The final recommendations released today illustrate how out of touch many on the Fiscal Commission, and many of those wielding influence in the Beltway, are with the everyday economic concerns and fears of Americans everywhere. This plan ignores the need for immediate public investments to spur job creation, relies too heavily on discretionary spending cuts, and slashes Social Security at a time when fewer Americans can count on a secure retirement.

"Outrageously, it embarks on a job-killing austerity path next fall (fiscal year 2012), when unemployment is still projected to be near 10 percent. In addition to imperiling the recovery in the short-term, the arbitrarily low debt target also hamstrings our ability to invest in our own economy – as our global competitors are doing.

"Are the $4 trillion Bush tax cuts (the same amount saved by the Commission’s proposals) worth sacrificing America’s place in the world? The Our Fiscal Security blueprint shows that we can rebuild the middle class, invest in our own economy, and put our nation’s finances on a sustainable path. The Commission’s recommendations would guarantee that America’s greatest days our behind us."

The catfood commission has released the final report [pdf], and will vote on it Friday. It hasn't substantially changed from the chairs' mark preemptively released by Simpson and Bowles a couple of weeks ago. It still has the disastrous ratio 2:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases, includes a payroll tax holiday (reducing further Social Security's take), a regressive tax structure and arbitrary spending caps. AP sums it up:

A new version of the plan, obtained by The Associated Press, makes mostly minor changes to a draft that whipped up enormous controversy when unveiled earlier this month. Some domestic spending cuts are modestly higher than previously proposed, and health care savings from overhauling the medical malpractice system would reap less than proposed earlier this month.

Unlike their original proposal, Bowles and Simpson stop short of calling for caps on medical malpractice awards. Instead they recommend changes in how awards are made.

But other proposals remain the same. Among them are a gradual increase in the Social Security retirement age to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075, using a less generous cost-of-living adjustment for the programs and increasing the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes.

The plan also retains a 15-cents-per-gallon increase on gasoline, a three-year freeze on federal worker pay and cutting 200,000 workers from the federal payroll through attrition.

The CBO scored the plan, throwing that dash of cold water, again, on the idea that there are real healthcare cost savings to be found in medical malpractice reform. It's the myth that refuses to die, and yet the commission didn't do anything to address criticisms that there's nothing effective in the proposal for reducing the greatest long-term deficit driver for the nation--healthcare costs.

The question now is what happens next. Yesterday, Reid promised a vote, but with conditions, as David Dayen notes: "the commission must provide legislative language in hand, and they must get at least a majority vote on the commission, which would be 10 votes." The legislative language condition is not going to be met, unless they find volunteers do translate for free. They didn't create legislative language and officially cease to exist after today.

The other question is whether they'll reach 10 votes--a bare majority. Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg have agreed to it, as far as the rest go, I agree with dday that it's very much in question.

I think the House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, are no votes. Jan Schakowsky, who came up with her own plan, is also a no. So we’re at 7-4.

What else do we know? Dick Durbin said he’s “studying” the proposal and didn’t have a commitment either way. Durbin did say that raising the retirement age was “acceptable.”

Joining Durbin on the fence is Andy Stern; Senators Max Baucus, Mike Crapo and Tom Coburn; and Democratic Reps. Xavier Becerra and John Spratt. To get 14 votes, they’d have to run the table. I’m not sure they get any of them, and could easily see 7 votes total for passage.

However, bits of this will survive as policy proposals and possibly in next year's budget. The White House's renewed commitment to bipartisanship seems destined to end up with Americans having to work longer for less secure retirements, and the wealthy continuing to do just fine.

Washington Post:

White House and congressional Republicans officials privately acknowledge the two sides could reach an agreement in which all of the tax cuts are extended, but only temporarily, perhaps for two or three years.

That's consistent with what Robert Gibbs said on ABC this morning:

The president’s principles are clear, and that is for the middle class their taxes can’t go up at the end of the year when a series of tax cuts expire. His other line in the sand, quite frankly George, is that many Republicans would like to see the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires extended permanently.

If you're not paying close attention, Gibbs' rhetoric sounds principled, but what he's really doing is creating a justification for continuing current tax policy -- which is a complete and total cave to the GOP position and represents an utter defeat of President Obama's tax policy.

It would be one thing if we had a deal that extended middle-class tax cuts permanently, but only extended the high-income tax cuts for two years. But a three-year continuation of all the tax cuts doesn't change a single thing about current tax policy and effectively is no different than making current tax policy permanent.

In all, it represents nearly $4 trillion in new debt over the next decade, $700 billion of which will go to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. And it appears the Obama administration is preparing to spin this continuation of Bush tax policy as a victory for their principles.

Between the letter and this, it seems that if Democrats hurry up and cave on the tax cuts, Republicans can get around to killing DADT, the DREAM Act, and extending unemployment benefits:

Senate Republicans could block controversial legislation during the lame-duck Congress until a deal on tax cuts is worked out, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) suggested Wednesday.  [...]

"One thing I think we all agreed on at the White House is that we ought to do first things first," McConnell said in an interview with ABC News. "And what the American people want to know is, are our taxes going up, and how are you going to fund the government. Let's do those things first, and see what kind of time is left."

Asked whether that meant the Senate would have time to tackle all the other issues like repealing "Don't ask, don't tell," passing the DREAM Act, or extending unemployment benefits, McConnell said: "No, I don't think so."

But really, the best line in the article comes from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman:

Anyone looking for the GOP's strategy in lame duck, here it is.

No! Really? Well, no one could have seen this one coming. Who would have ever suspected that the GOP would follow the exact same strategy that they have used for the past two years?

This bipartisanship thing is going really well so far.

This is how the GOP responds to Obama's good-faith cave-in to their agenda.

Officials say Senate Republicans intend to block action on virtually all Democratic-backed legislation unrelated to tax cuts and government spending in the current postelection session of Congress.

The officials say GOP leadership has quietly collected signatures on a letter pledging to carry out the strategy.

That could doom Democratic-backed attempts to end the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for gay servicemen and give legal status to some young illegal immigrants.

I can see the Obama braintrust deliberating right now -- if only they unilaterally capitulate on five, maybe six other GOP agenda items, maybe then Republicans might be nice enough to negotiate in good faith!

I mean, nothing projects strength and resolve more than conceding the game before the teams have even taken the field. Nobody could've predicted that Republicans would respond this way.