Something tells me it cut fairly deeply for Obama to extend all the tax-cuts, but you have to look at the larger picture. The U.S. economy has suffered a severe and historic financial fall. To recover from that it's theoretically more favorable to provide citizens with tax cuts than not. Add to that the hand Obama was dealt at the mid-term elections which tilted the scales of congress in the Republican favor, and you see much more pressure to compromise in order to govern for progress of the country rather than draw lines in the sand for gridlock.

I'm not saying Obama is Jesus in the flesh, and that he never gets anything wrong. At the same time, I don't think it's helpful for people to sit back and criticize with broad strokes. Have you called your representatives about the 9/11 responders bill? Or net neutrality? Have we, the tech experts that hang out on sites like HN, taken concrete actions to make our voice heard on things like net neutrality, or do we just wait until the verdicts are nearly in from politicians who don't understand the ramifications as well as we do, and then complain when it's not what we want?