President Obama Lambastes Democrats in Congress for Holding the "American People Hostage" to Tax Cuts for the Rich

In yesterday's press conference, President Obama showed flashes of anger -- not about terrorism, North Korea or unemployment, but about the halfhearted criticism he's receiving from the professional Left.

I've said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it's tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed.

Because Democrats hold super-majorities in both houses of Congress, the hostage-takers he's describing must be members of his own party.

This is not a situation in which I have failed to persuade the American people of the rightness of our position. I know the polls. The polls are on our side on this. We weren't operating from a position of political weakness with respect to public opinion.

So why not pass whatever you want with your super-majorities?

Oh, and concerning the fact that he's been forced to "compromise" (as opposed to capitulate, which is what most Americans would prefer), Obama used the following analogy -- roughly equivalent to having Michael Moore serve as a spokesman for Weightwatchers.

This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.

And now they're bankrupt. In 2008 the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated Social Security's unfunded liability at $14 trillion and those of Medicare at $86 trillion.

And that was before the meltdown.

These unfunded liabilities must either be repaid or defaulted upon. This is the infernal choice that Democrats have laid at the feet of our children and grandchildren.

The longer we wait to act, the more disastrous the effects upon our nation.

And one other thought: everything the President has said and done in the last two-plus years has been wrong. Everything. Gird your loins.


Hat tip: Mark Levin.