Dear Democrats…

…when the fuck are you going to learn how to play this game?

News today is that Republicans have magnanimously promised that, if only we keep the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans for another two years, tax cuts that they continue to claim will “create jobs” even though they haven’t in the nine years since they were passed, then they’ll go along with letting them expire two years from now.

Yeah.  And Lucy won’t pull the football away this time.

This is not a hard one to field, so instead of a good number of you going about talking about how you agree with the GOP, try this instead:

1.  Obama, Reid & Pelosi appear at a joint press statement to announce that the Bush tax cuts – tax cuts designed by the Republicans to expire this year, designed as such to hide their true cost – will be allowed to expire this year on schedule.  Obama should say something bipartisan to make David Broder happy – something like “we’ve heard the concerns conservatives have raised about deficits that never bothered them before, and we agree – tax cuts for millionaires are not something we can afford right now.  So we’re going to accomplish reducing the deficit by over $650 billion over the next decade by not renewing these tax cuts, which have failed to produce jobs for 9 years now.” 

Ok… so maybe Broder won’t like it.  But he’s a douche anyway, so who cares?

Also, some Ross Perot-style charts showing all the great job creation these tax cuts produced over the past 9 years would be nice.  I’ve seen them and they aren’t pretty.

2.  Announce at the same time the Democratic leadership’s introduction of tax cut legislation to restore tax cuts for everyone except those making over $250K effective Jan. 1, 2011.  Something to the effect that “in the midst of a recession, we can’t raise taxes on those hardest hit.  Increasing taxes on working people will reduce the money circulating in the economy at a time when we need to increase it, which is the only thing that really creates jobs.”  Twist the knife a little and assault the Randian underpinnings of their economic “theories”.

3.  Bring said legislation up for votes as many times as possible between now and the election and force the Republicans to vote against it/filibuster it as many times as possible.

4.  Flog the Republicans’ votes against tax cuts mercilessly from now until election day, while pledging that if Democrats keep the majority in the new Congress, the tax cuts will be restored in the new session. 

5.  In the unlikely event that Republicans cry uncle and vote in favor of the new tax cut package, flog your success in deficit reduction mercilessly from now until election day.  Do not fail to note that if Republicans had their way, the deficit they whine about so piteously would continue to grow by $66 billion per year so Paris Hilton could buy a few more designer bags (or bags of other stuff) each year.

This shit is not rocket science.  I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to have any respect for you guys when you continue to get your asses kicked by the criminally stupid people in the other party, simply because you can’t be bothered to get your act together.  Competence in the pursuit of reasonable public policy is no vice; please stop pretending you need to apologize for it.