David Axelrod: Americans Would Have Gotten 'Screwed' Without Tax Cut Deal (VIDEO)

Senior White House adviser David Axelrod hit the morning show circuit Wednesday to defend Obama's tax cuts deal and to explain what the administration saw as the high stakes that prompted the final negotiations.

"I say the people who are going to get screwed [... ] are the American people if we don't act to prevent their taxes from going up January 1." Axelrod told CNN's "American Morning."

"Compromise by its very nature involves things that neither side like," Axelrod continued. "We don't like extending even temporarily the tax cuts for the wealthy, more generous treatment of wealthy estates, that was the price Republicans demanded for a very significant package of tax cuts for the middle class and tax cuts to help businesses grow and hire."

Axelrod went on, claiming that the White House was prepared to continue the debate against some of the Republican provisions in the agreement in the future, but that it could no longer delay action on extending tax cuts for the middle class and reauthorizing unemployment benefits.

"Nobody can tell you that it would end better than this compromise," Axelrod said. "There's no end game to this and in the interim taxes would go up, people would lose their unemployment insurance and the economy would suffer."

On ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday, Axelrod said that increasing negativity from both Democrats and Republicans over various aspects of the package and the threats that they'd work to block it would amount to playing "Russian roulette with the lives of the American people."

"The framework of the deal is in place," Axelrod told George Stephanopoulos. "Republicans essentially traded away everything in the package for tax cuts for the wealthy temporarily and this more generous treatment of estates. We don't like it, but what we got in exchange was significant tax relief for the middle class, an extension of unemployment insurance for people who have lost their jobs in this down economy."

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Comments

[Jed Brandt]

12:10 PM on 12/23/2010

Hi, I'm David Axelrod and I screw you all for the ruling class. That's called compromise. Now take it.

[neveragin09]

12:04 PM on 12/11/2010

axelrod as an advisor is a ghastly mistake. next he'll advise obama to get rid of the limos and get a fleet of edsels. i mean axelrod?? he has long outlived any ,if any ,use he may of had. get a young, smart, energetic, connected person to advise you obama. give axelrod the ax.

[redhead55]

04:16 PM on 12/09/2010

Time for this guy to head back to Chicago. Past time!

[smithr17]

04:15 PM on 12/09/2010

WEAK! WEAK! WEAK!!!

[Epimenides]

03:47 PM on 12/09/2010

It will be interesting to see whether Emanuel and Axelrod can screw up Chicago government as quickly as they screwed up the federal government.

And how they managed to make it even worse than the Cheney/Bush administration left it will remain one of history's great mysteries.

[BocaMom]

03:18 PM on 12/09/2010

Too funny. Obviously, the Obama 2012 Campaign has begun.

[RyanC1384]

02:59 PM on 12/09/2010

Full disclosure : I support the President's decision to compromise and think it is best for the country, so I wouldn't wear one of these. With that said, I have had an enormous amount of requests for a "Yes We Cave" T-Shirt design so I've put one together : http://bit.ly/fBRWff

What do you think?

[FreeProgressLiberal]

02:59 PM on 12/09/2010

Axelrod - go home and comb the few hairs you have left on your head.

In the meantime let us the taxpayers continue to champion the true Progressives in Washington D.C. to stand up to this idiotic deal that Obama thinks they should sign off on.

[chicagurl]

03:06 PM on 12/09/2010

Ditto.

[mrpossumtail]

04:36 PM on 12/09/2010

I reckon he got screwed by his barber.

[William Cusack]

02:46 PM on 12/09/2010

Obama doesn't realize that his refusal to use all available ways and means to force concessions from the GOP is why his base is so angry. There is no need to compromise with the GOP. Who gives a damn what the GOP wants? Obama is compromising when he should be dictating. They can get past a filibuster. This tax deal is only good as long they pretend standing up to the GOP isn't possible. It is. We are sick of giving up what we want to appease the people who brought this country to its knees. We will find someone in 2012 who knows how to use power. I hope that person is Obama but that is less and less likely with every unnecessary concession.

[chicagurl]

03:07 PM on 12/09/2010

Ditto!

[Apov]

02:42 PM on 12/09/2010

Would have been screwed?

A little late.

We've been screwed big time!!

[Ralph Perman]

02:22 PM on 12/09/2010

Did you notice how tired and worn out he looked? Defending the indefensible takes a lot out of you.

[chicagurl]

03:08 PM on 12/09/2010

Well, then, he could try something else................. like standing up for principles, for a change, instead of bending over all the time. That would get old.

[leoluminary]

02:17 PM on 12/09/2010

The Toxic Red Tide is mighty high today

[JohnHKennedy]

01:04 PM on 12/09/2010

PRIMARY OBAMA & BIDEN -- REPLACE THEM WITH DEMOCRATS

[LemonMeringue]

12:46 PM on 12/09/2010

Blah blah blah blah blah. We know when we are getting scroooood and it is with this proposed "compromise".

[BlueSkyPilot]

12:08 PM on 12/09/2010

Isn't leaving in January? He won't be around to deal with the fallout so why should he be concerned with the truth that this is the worst deal for the majority of Americans Mr O has made yet.