Politics
Obama and the GOP – Power struggle continues
U.S. President., Barack Obama
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, with tree lights twinkling, sleigh bells ringing and President Barack Obama locked in his annual Yuletide power struggle with Republicans in Congress.
This year’s fight, over Obama’s demands for an extension of a workers’ tax cut and unemployment benefits, has added pep, as both sides clearly view the seasonal slugfest as an early skirmish in the 2012 election.
With lawmakers pining to be home for the holidays and Obama eyeing the sun and surf of his native Hawaii, both sides are playing chicken with the calendar. Obama has even told Republicans not to be a “Grinch.”
Obama says the cut in payroll taxes, which he says will help the poorest workers who need it most, should be paid for by higher income taxes on the wealthiest Americans, drawing Republican charges of class warfare.
The gambit reflects his emerging 2012 reelection strategy, laid out in a speech this past week, of painting Republicans as chief sponsors of a financial system rigged for the rich that robs regular Americans of a “fair shot.”
“They want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years,” Obama said in Kansas on Wednesday.
The president is also at loggerheads with Republicans who blocked his nominee to head a new financial services watchdog designed to spare consumers from the excesses of Wall Street and credit card firms.
