Congress has a GOP majority, right? So even if all Dems had voted on Obama's side, it still wouldn't have gone through Congress. Also, why was he saddled with the choice of slashing the tax breaks to all? did he not want to just target those who made $250,000 or more?
No, congress since 2010 is split. Democrats have a majority in the Senate, Republicans have a majority in the House. From 2008 to 2010 Democratsh ad complete control of Congress.
In December of last year, when he first was talking about raising taxes just on one group of people while keeping it the same for everyone else, Democrats had full control of congress and he still could not pass that legislation. You're correct in that currently even if the Democratic Senate went along with something it'd have to go through the Republican house. However, again, not continuing to push for something that is not feasably going to pass in the current situation is not "bending over backwards" to "cater" to the right. Suggesting that someone is "bending over backwards" to "cater" to a group implies that the person is actively attempting to woo an do right by that group as a primary focus. Obama came into all of these things solidly from a leftist perspective and only when it was clear that he had no chance to get it passed did he begin to move more and more right in hope sof finding the spot where he could get the votes.
I dunno. He's been pretty darn compromising in my eyes. A lot more so than the current GOP and Tea Party congress and Dubya, who was "the Decider." The health bill could have passed without the GOP's amendments, right? Seems to me he's been reaching out but getting little in return.
Really? Dubya wasn't a compromiser? How about No Child Left Behind, Ted Kennedy's baby? How about going along with the entire thing of comprehensive immigration reform? How about expanding entitlements with Medicare Part D? How about working with the Demcratic controlled congress on TARP?
Yeah, Obama's compromising more than the Tea Party and congressional republicans are right now. This is the case often when you have a President of one party who doesn't have the votes in congress to get what he wants. The same thing happened often in the 80's under Reagan when there was a Democratically controlled congress and we got things like amnesty, some increased taxes, etc. However, its also an illusion most of the times as well. The President sets that initial volly to the direction he wants...Reagan right, Obama left. And then the "compromising" goes from there. Its not a situation where issues start in the middle and then the person tends to compromise from there. Obama's position at the start of almost all these things has been moderately to staunchly left in almost every issue that has occured aside from his latter year defense actions. He's already got it slanted to his side so the Republicans "Compromising" substantially would be disrespecting their entire constitutency as they're essentially in no way fighting to take a conservative stance on issues. Where as generally Obama has presented the situation in such a way that even through "compromise" its still more of a left wing result then it is right wing.
The health care bill could not have passed without Republican and blue dog support. If it could've, it would've. Obama's party had complete control of congress and his health care bill could not get passed. He reached out to the right not out of the goodness of his heart or a desire for bipartisanship, he reached out because he didn't have the damn votes to pass what he wanted and he didn't want to completely fail at a major campaign pillar.
Okay, so anyone on the left apparently wants universal health care, immediete pull out of iraq, immediete closure of gitmo, taxes on carbon immisions, cap in trade, additional bailouts and TARP, etc. Sorry for my inaccuracy in suggesting that it wasn't the left as a whole that supports those things. Silly me, giving the benefit of the doubt.
Then yes, he's not been able to get everything the left in general want because aparently based on your accuracy they're all pretty damn strong liberals.
He can't do it now because the GOP are the majority. And, it seems, few--if none--will compromise beyond party lines.
Again, you're simply factually wrong. The GOP is not the majority. The congress is split. You also seem to have some glaring holes in your memory, 2 years worth to be exact, when Democrats actually DID have majority control of both houses and yet he still couldn't get the votes needed to pass his stau-...I'm sorry, average leftist agenda that he pushed at the start of each issue.
You're right, Obama's compromising because he has to get votes. I won't sit here and say that Obama doesn't or hasn't compromised because it'd just be true. However, compromising because what he originally pushes for doesn't stand a chance of passing is far different then purposefully "bending over backwards" to "cater" to a group. That's compromising to be able to have some claim of accomplishing something. He's not trying to "cater" to the republicans in any way, he's trying to do just enough to get the votes needed to pass an agenda as close as possible to what he'd like.
