Originally Posted by
Soflasnapper
It really is all about the art of the possible, and without better insight into what was possible, and needing something, it is hard to say what money was left on the table, so to speak, what prospects there may have been to get it with a bit more negotiating (with economic terrorists, remember), or the pros and cons of not getting any deal, in the interests of ideological purity.
However, Lawrence O'Donnell made the point that the Democrats set the $200 to $250k income point for the top bracket to kick in, as of 20 years ago. Putting this point into 2012 US dollars, that threshold would be, he says, $396k (approx. $400k). This has been a common sense objection to the rate increases starting at $250k for a lot of otherwise sensible people. Because even in 1990, people earning that amount of money were not necessarily rich at all. Now, that's even less true, and people know it. That was the reason for the Plan B's set point of $1 million a year in income-- EVERYONE basically agreed that was a level of income that was indeed synonymous with being rich.
Negotiations require a trade-off-- you cannot get everything you wanted. Obama also wanted an extension of the UE compensation, which he got for another year (or two?). He wanted to avoid the contractionary effects of spending cuts. Those were staved off, with no particular extra cuts. The sequester got put off, if only for some months.
Obviously, compared to a perfect negotiation, he fell short. In the realm of the practical and possible, it's far from obvious what more could have been gotten.
