Tired of Obama’s unwillingness to fight Republicans

Cesar F. Lumba, Las Vegas

Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

President Barack Obama gets into trouble with his Democratic base because he seems unable to understand his supporters’ disappointment with him. Currently, he thinks his base is up in arms because of his tax-cut concessions to the Republicans.

But he fails to see that the Democratic base’s disenchantment is over a series of policy decisions in the past two years, not just the tax cuts for the rich. The tax cuts are the last straw.

Obama never fought for the public option in the health care reform bill. He agreed to a stimulus bill that was not big enough to stimulate. He never fought for tough Wall Street reforms. He was absent in the debates over the DREAM Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The day after the last elections, he was talking about compromise with the Republicans on the tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires, an unconscionable capitulation that was the last straw for us progressives and liberals.

We in the Democratic base are simply fed up with a president who is unwilling to engage in a just war with Republicans who, after all, beginning with Ronald Reagan, have been responsible for the country’s deficits.

Typically, the deficits are created by Republican administrations, while Democrats are supposed to be the ones who fix the problem. Obama should have taken his cue from Bill Clinton, who raised taxes and brought the budget into balance, resulting in the country’s second golden age.