This Just In: GOP Won't Negotiate

By Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast

15 March 13

t seems worth reiterating this morning that there is no basis on which Obama can make a deal with Republicans. Greg Sargent took note of a vote in the Senate yesterday that was telling. This was on an amendment designed to ensure that corporations could not use loopholes to avoid entirely the payment of income taxes. Note that word "entirely."

Every Republican on the Budget Committee voted no. Sargent:

Republicans have argued in the past that corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to reduce the amount they pay in taxes as much as possible within the law. But what this vote shows is that Republicans prioritize this corporate imperative over deficit reduction, even in the cases of corporations that pay no taxes at all. This really doesn’t bode well for the chances that Republicans may agree to new revenues, does it?

When Republicans say Obama needs to show "leadership," what they mean is that he ought to just embrace the Ryan budget. They really won't accept anything else. Oh, they might accept $4.4 trillion in cuts over 10 years instead of Ryan's $4.65 trillion, but that's about all the compromise they're up for. We need to remind ourselves of this fact on a regular basis and say it often. There is nothing Obama can do to please them except drop entirely his demand for revenue, which would be indefensible on political and policy grounds.