The Democrats Do What Democrats Do: Compromise, Concede, Cave, Capitulate

Last week I wrote about how the Republican Party's rejection of bills to extend the payroll tax cut for another year which would benefit the middle class and which the Democrats want to pay for with a surtax on millionaires and billionaires perfectly encapsulates the stark difference between the two parties, and provides a great frame for the 2012 election.  But I also predicted that the Democrats inevitably would cave to Republican threats of a filibuster, scrap the surtax and replace it with a series of cost-cutting offsets.

Lo and behold, CNN reports:   

In what would be a major concession, President Obama and Senate Democrats will drop their insistence that a surtax on millionaires pay for extending the payroll tax cut, a Democratic source tells CNN. This would be part of a new Democratic offer.  The move comes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Senate Democrats met with President Obama at the White House earlier today.

Major concession indeed.