Barack Obama was voted into the White House for one thing: change. But more on this later.

Keynesian economics suggests high spending by governments and tax cuts are the way to get out of a recession, because they will spur job creation and consumer spending. But what happens when you walk into a recession with a boatload of tax cuts happening already, like we did in 2008? And what happens when people aren’t spending despite the high level of tax relief, especially for the rich?

The answer to this is the realization that we’re a baseball team playing on a quidditch field, and like all imaginary games, we need to start making up new rules. Or at least slightly adjust them.

What this rather long introduction is meant to communicate is the extending of the Bush-era tax cuts, combined with an extension of unemployment benefits, was a bad move. Because of the new political arrangement (Republican House, Democratic Senate), extending one was a caveat to extending the other. What Obeezee and the Democrats needed to do, for the benefit of the U.S. economy, was to let the tax cuts expire, and see if the Republicans really had the mettle to pull unemployment benefits for 1.5 million Americans during the month of Christmas.

But that isn’t what happened. Instead, they compromised. And what did such a compromise get us? By undergraduate math, not even a full percentage improvement in GDP, and half of that for unemployment, which will only last another year, and then we slump back down again.

But this is just an issue of a more systemic problem: the lack of a spine presented by President Obama. Harkening back to the undiscerning introduction, we voted for change, but not the kind we got.

During his tenure, George W. Bush threw his political power around like it was a football in a Texas stadium built over the top of yet another failed oil well. Obama, on the other hand, is constantly caving for the sake of bipartisanship.

During the time when he had full control of both the House and the Senate, he caved to Republicans when passing his $787 billion recovery package (economists estimated the recovery needed to be somewhere around $2 trillion, and that such a low number would actually hurt the economy). Instead, he opted to give the missing dollars to the failing automotive industry. GM and Co. have since cursed his name for the gesture.

To be sure, Republicans and the big businesses that support them will never be on Obama’s side, because he is a Democrat named Barack who just happens to be the President of the United States.

What the American people and Obama need to recognize is Republicans aren’t trying to solve the problem, either. They see the continuing hardship of the middle class as a road to regain power. Judging by the last election, it’s working.

While it’s certainly better to have the House and the Senate split in political dominance, the perpetual roadblock of FOX News-fueled conservatives on the political process is putting a rather serious kink in the recovery of the United States.

And this latest caving on Bush-era tax cuts, which is in direct conflict with Obama’s previously stated public position, could really be the final nail in the Democrats’ nerve. Barack Obama is a smart guy, but evidently that well-built physique doesn’t come complete with the guts to throw a punch.

Either way, taxes are low, and unemployment is extended. Merry Christmas, America. Enjoy it now, because if these tax cuts eventually become permanent, they will equal a loss of roughly $4 trillion over the next decade, which could lead to yet another financial crisis.