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Tyrone Slothrop · 12-08-2010, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgtclub

You didn't say that, but it is what you are suggesting. You are saying that there is no other reason to be for this position, other than to protect a core constituency.

Maybe they're all ideologues, but ideology is one of helping rich people.

Here's the key part of the Chait post (links omitted) that I linked to and you seem to disagree with:

Quote:

[I]n pure dollar terms, the Republicans got way less out of the tax deal than Democrats did:

Quote:

Despite being billed as a great debate over the Bush tax cuts, the struggle between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans appears to have ended with an extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts representing only about 37 percent of the total cost of the agreement Obama announced Monday night.

And keep in mind, most of that 37% is for families making less than $250,000 a year. In pure numeric terms, the vast majority of the money in this deal is for things the White House (and most Democrats) actually want.

How did Democrats get a deal like that? Ezra Klein's source confirms what I speculated without any information -- Republicans love them some rich folk. They're willing to bargain away a lot to help the very rich:

Quote:

For one thing, the things [Republicans] wanted were things they really, really wanted. A number of sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations have fingered the estate tax as the major player in the size of the deal. "Republicans were extremely eager to get benefits for the top tenth of a percent of Americans," says one senior administration official.

The only thing that can overwhelm the GOP's partisanship is its overwhelming desire to increase the incomes of the top 1%.

I'm not sure which part you're disagreeing with.