Ross:

Given the parlous state of the economy, it makes sense to maintain the low Bush-era tax rates, it makes sense to extend unemployment benefits, and it makes sense to temporarily drop the payroll tax rate … if, that is, our leaders use the time between today and 2012, when this bargain comes up for renegotiation, to make real progress on a strategy for long-term deficit reduction, joined to a base-broadening, rate-lowering tax reform package that renders the debates over the Bush tax cuts obsolete.

In other words, the deal makes sense if Obama and the GOP will prove themselves to be fiscally responsible stewards working in the national interest. So the deal doesn’t really make sense. As Ross explains, the last administration and this one have been very good at pushing through big, expensive legislation. The Bush administration failed completely to pay for anything it did. There is no reason to expect anything better this time around.

The deal does provide a useful contrast with the federal wage freeze theater we saw earlier in this session. Phony deficit hawks love this sort of theater, because it allows them to oppose spending without opposing enough of it to run real political risks. When it came down to it, and there was a decision to be made between deficit reduction and deficit expansion, both the White House and the GOP chose the latter. Certainly, it’s helpful to be reminded immediately that Republicans in Congress are incorrigible and fiscally irresponsible. That can save their supporters the trouble of going through the time-consuming and embarrassing phase of expecting something different from Bush-era behavior.

As for Obama, he has managed to adopt and then abandon a pretense of deficit hawkishness in a relatively short period of time, which has served to annoy his core supporters without having any redeeming value on policy substance. Thanks to this deal, he has added one more charge of embracing “centrist” governance in a country where most of the public actually loathes the products of “centrist” governance from the last decade.

The most tiresome response to this deal I have seen is the claim that it somehow helps Obama with “the center” because the left is unhappy about it. It seems clear to me that he has put himself in the position of being identified with the interests of the wealthy and powerful yet again, which has been one of the administration’s problems for two years. Something like two-thirds of the public favored letting the top rate go up, and that includes the precious voters of “the center,” and Obama has now effectively taken the very unpopular side of this debate.

Too-clever-by-half interpretations of this hold that Obama is playing a cunning long-term game. However, it is never cunning to abandon a core commitment, disillusion one’s most active supporters, and cede an opponent everything he wants from a relative position of strength in the hopes that the opponent will later be easier to outmaneuver after he has become even stronger. “Centrist” and conservative pundits who have been urging Obama to capitulate on this issue are rather like Gollum urging Frodo on into Shelob’s lair. “No, really, this is the right way to go!” Obama’s defenders on this are reduced to saying that the lair could have been a lot worse. Provided that he isn’t eaten by the spider, all will be well.

It’s worth noting that the argument for voting on START now contradicts the positive spin some Obama supporters are trying to put on the deal. The administration has correctly argued for voting on the treaty now. This is not just because it is important and should be ratified as soon as possible, but because they assume that five more Republican votes are more than enough to kill it outright. They take for granted that everything, including a treaty that has overwhelming consensus support, will be far more difficult to move through the Senate next year, and obviously the new Republican House will be even more combative. Everything gets much harder for Obama over the next years, and he is already giving in to the opposition before the new Congress has met.

People who insist that Obama is playing a long game haven’t taken account of the fact that, politically speaking, Obama has been steadily losing the long game for most of the last year. They are also overlooking the reality that Obama and the Democrats frittered away their advantages for much of the year, which hardly inspires confidence in anyone that they are going to become more effective once they are weaker.