U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about jobs for veterans on February 3, 2012, at Fire Station #5 in Arlington, Virginia. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.
KEITH OLBERMANN: The president unveils his budget for fiscal year 2013 to a storm of boos from the GOP, while — to uses his adviser David Axelrod’s memorable phrase tonight — there is a new monkey butt beaming down at us from the Republican presidential tree.
The fifth story on the “Countdown” — the president, presenting a budget that he calls a “blueprint for an economy that is built to last,” overshadowed tonight by breaking news. The New York Times reporting that the House GOP has caved in on extending the payroll-tax cut and will do so through the end of the year, most likely.
The Times quoting a statement from Speaker Boehner, Majority leader Cantor and Whip McCarthy, “Today House Republicans will introduce a back-up plan that would simply extend the payroll-tax holiday for the remainder of the year while the conference negations continue regarding offsets, unemployment insurance and the ‘doc fix.’”
The Times also quotes Democratic leaders as objecting to separating out the payroll-tax cut, despite the obvious victory the GOP is handing them, because of the risk that doing so poses the extension of unemployment benefits, as well as the Medicare legislation.
As to the budget, the president taking the stage at Northern Virginia Community College and laying out the essence of his proposal:
(Excerpt from video clip) OBAMA: The main idea in the budget is this — at a time when our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we’ve got to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track.
OLBERMANN: The president planning to do this with a $3.8 trillion budget, to include $350 billion in stimulus spending along with $476 billion worth of infrastructure and transportation projects. The president still looking to reduce the deficit by four trillion over ten years, stating with $1.5 trillion in new taxes, $800 billion in war savings, $278 billion in mandatory spending cut and $360 billion cuts to Medicare and the other entitlement programs.
Those tax increases to come, in part, from households earning over a quarter of a million a year, by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire; by taxing dividends as ordinary income — Mitt Romney — and by applying the “Buffett Rule,” the notion that wealthy employers should and would be charged the same tax rate as their own secretaries.
The president, emphasizing that he was seeking both balance and fairness:
(Excerpt from video clip) OBAMA: We can restore an economy where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody does their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street. That’s the America we believe in.
OLBERMANN: Well, maybe not the congressional GOP.
Senate Leader McConnell, putting no faith in the president’s claims for his numbers or his goals:
(Excerpt from video clip) MITCH McCONNELL: The president’s goal isn’t to solve our problems but to ignore them for another year, which will only ensure that they get even worse.
OLBERMANN: House Leader Boehner and Cantor joining that chorus.
Cantor saying the new budget “ratchets up spending while ignoring the biggest drivers of our debt and calls for massive tax increases on hard-working families and small businesses.”
Remember, “small business” is defined by how many owners they have.
Boehner, with an eye toward the entitlement cuts, foreseeing, “a tidal wave of debt, cresting over important programs like Medicare, and the President continues to look the other way.”
Back to the campaign trail, where Governor Romney, on Saturday, was looking forward to winning the Maine Republican caucus.
(Excerpt from video clip) MITT ROMNEY: I want to be your nominee. I want to beat President Obama. I believe I can. I believe I’m the one person in this race who actually can beat the president.
OLBERMANN: Maine caucus goers seeming to agree, all 5,024 of them. Well, 2,190, of them, that’s the hard number in Romney’s 39 percent of the total. Twenty-one hundred and ninety people, followed by Ron Paul with 36 percent, Santorum at 18, Gingrich with six.
Romney also winning the Conservative Political action conference Straw poll on Saturday, pulling in 38 percent of yahoos present, followed by Santorum with 31, Gingrich 15, Paul at 12. But Romney’s unlikely win there also brings him allegations that he cooked the CPAC voting by paying his activists to take part.
Rick Santorum chose to be gracious. Sort of.
(Excerpt from video clip) RICK SANTORUM: We didn’t do that, we don’t do that. I don’t try to rig straw polls. You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets — we’ve heard all sorts of things.
OLBERMANN: Hearing this, also, from Sarah Palin’s CPAC speech:
(Excerpt from video clip) PALIN: and I’m the idiot!
OLBERMANN: Wonder what that is a callback to? Hmm? That woman is irrelevant.
Santorum, meanwhile, also looking right to Michigan GOP primary voters, leading Mitt Romney there, 39-24 percent with Paul and Gingrich both trailing badly behind. Both Michigan and Arizona to hold their Republican primaries on the last day of the month — forgive me, the 28th, there is a leap year this year — with Santorum heading into those campaigns leading the field, more or less, in three national polls as well. Santorum on top of Romney, 38-23, you should excuse the expression.
In the Public Policy poll of Republican primary voters, in front of Romney by two percent, well within the margin of error in the latest Gallup poll and pulling the same lead in the most recent Pew Research poll.
The GOP in a moment.
The president’s budget and developments on the Hill about the payroll-tax cut extension and Sam Stein, the White House correspondent political editor of the Huffington Post. Sam, good evening.
SAM STEIN: Hey, Keith, thanks for having me.
OLBERMANN: Our pleasure. What is going on with the payroll-tax extension? Is this as simple as it reads? That the GOP is giving up, but the Dems are refusing to let them?
STEIN: Yeah, it is actually. You know, obviously, we have to go back two months to when this issue was first considered and the Republican party really botched it and they don’t want to go down that road again.
Now, it’s interesting that any spending — sorry — they have to offset any spending increase, but if you want to pursue a continuation of a tax cut you don’t have to offset this. This is actually written into the GOP rules. And, in this case, they’re exercising that rule and they said, “Well, instead of having to go about trying to negotiate how to offset the cost of extending this payroll-tax cut, let’s just extend it without offsetting it.”
And so, what we have now are them inviting the Democrats to join them in continuing this policy.
OLBERMANN: And the Dems don’t want to do it because, as I suggested before, this jeopardizes the other things they’ve — they’ve — they’ve sort of packaged in this trifecta?
STEIN: Well, my guess is that over time the Democrats will do it. They do think that they have a winning hand. Obviously, what happened in late December was advantageous for them. They tried to attach a millionaire surtax as a offset for the payroll-tax extension. They were trying to pursue the same thing this go-around. It sets up a nice contrast. But, you know, it’s very tough to let this thing expire when it’s right there for you to extend it without offsetting it.
OLBERMANN: All right, back to what we were going to originally talk about — the budget. What, practically, does this budget mean, if the Republicans come out and describe it as nothing more than an Election-Day document, and obviously, the president has postured as something that isn’t going to get passed the way he want its. And, clearly, the Republican response is also an Election Day stance, if nothing else. What is this, if not just another slap fights?
STEIN: Well, I was going to say — that’s an Election Day response to an Election Day document.
I think, obviously, politics is at play on both sides. But it sets up the contrast that we’ve been hearing for three months now, maybe four, which started with the American Jobs Act, crested with the Kansas speech, as well. Which is, that this administration has gradually moved away from the notion that they need to pursue austerity light.
Now, that’s a rhetorical thing, because tucked into the document, as you noted upfront, are all these cuts and spending decreases.
However, this administration likes the idea that they’re going to actually spend money to invest in jobs, infrastructure, re-hiring teachers, maybe some aid for nurses and local jobs. And, they’re willing to let the Republicans accuse them of electioneering in the process, because why wouldn’t you want to be for nursing this economic recovery at a time when it’s just getting better?
But, yes, it’s obviously politics. I’m curious to see how the Republican party responds as the president goes about and campaigns on this thing.
OLBERMANN: But, speaking of nursing, I mean, if it’s $350 billion, or whatever the figure is — $350 million, or $350 in cuts to Medicare — I thought the concept of the deficit-reduction stage show had jumped the shark. Why is the administration still on it?
STEIN: It’s really curious, especially because you get the sense that they’re going to have to negotiate this stuff in the future, so why give away the $350 billion up front? Sorry, $350 million. And I’m not entirely sure.
Obviously, Medicare is driving intense costs in this country. It’s the one thing that’s driving the deficit more than anything else. This administration has tried to keep the cuts strictly to the provider side, not to the beneficiary side, and they’re hoping that, you know, they get some credit for trying to at least tackle an entitlement issue.
But, of course, all it does in the interim is piss off a lot of people in your own party who think that you shouldn’t give away that chip when you’re going to have to negotiate it down the road.
OLBERMANN: So, ultimately, with all this, Sam — is this jujitsu?
STEIN: Yes!
OLBERMANN: You take the tax increase on the rich that the president wants. If the president insists on something, the GOP, presumably, overreacts and the president then, you know, commandeers their force and their energy and — what happens then?
STEIN: Well, in this case with taxes, it’s — it would be shocking to me and to a lot of other people to see the GOP ever bend on it — it’s been remarkable that they haven’t so far. The one thing that has any promise whatsoever, in terms of tax policy or form, is to eliminate some of these subsidies that you get, for instance, the oil-and-gas company, corporate jet owners and the like.
But, with respect to raising the rate on dividends, with respect to raising the rate on — letting the Bush tax-cut rates for the wealthy go up again. I just don’t see how that happens until they are actually set to expire at the end of December of 2012. Yet again, the only thing we have to go on is that the president had this opportunity at the end of 2010, and he punted on it.
OLBERMANN: Sam Stein, White House correspondent and political editor, Huffington Post. As always, Sam, thanks for some of your time tonight.
STEIN: Thanks, Keith, take care.
OLBERMANN: You too.
