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Obama’s tax cut surrender â€Ž

12 November 2010 08:42 (UTC +04:00)

Baku - APA-Economics. The Huffington Post is claiming that Obama’s top adviser, David Axelrod has admitted surrender on tax cuts, Salon reported.

President Barack Obama’s top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board, temporary continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers...

"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."

As one might expect, the Huffington Post is making a big deal of this news, with screaming banner headlines. But Axelrod is now claiming he said nothing newsworthy.

There is not one bit of news here. I simply re-stated what POTUS and [press secretary] Robert [Gibbs} have been saying. Our two strong principles are that we need to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, but we can’t afford a permanent extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy.

Axelrod protests too much. Notice the key difference? The Huffington Post reports the willingness to agree to temporary continuation of the tax cuts, while Axelrod maintains that the White House is still opposing a permanent distinction.

There’s no sugar-coating this: The White House has failed utterly on a goal that it tried to make its signature issue right before the midterms. Now the administration is clinging to a very slender thread -- the notion that if Congress makes tax cuts for the middle class permanent, while only allowing a temporary extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, it will force a vote further on down the line on whether or not to continue extending tax cuts for the richest Americans.