The Bush Deficit Exploders

Stop calling them tax cuts. They're Bush Deficit-Exploders. And the majority of Americans want them killed.

Steve Benen:

FIGHTING WITH PUBLIC BACKING ON TAXES.... If it seems as if Democratic policymakers engage in debates from a defensive crouch, it's generally because they assume the public is skeptical about their position. Republicans excel in messaging and demagoguery, so Dems tend to fear voter backlashes, regardless of merit.

But when polls show the public strongly endorsing a Democratic idea, it's generally a bit of a hint that they have nothing to be afraid of.

On the issue of expiring Bush-era tax rates, for example, Republicans seem awfully confident, but its Dems who have the popular proposal.

On taxes, three in ten believe that the Bush-era tax cuts should be continued for all Americans, according to the new poll released Friday. Just over 50 percent say those tax cuts should be continued only for families who make less than $250,000 a year, as Obama has proposed. Nearly 1 in 5 meanwhile say the tax cuts should expire for all Americans.

The political winds tend to be blowing in the other direction, but this is pretty good news for Dems -- on one of the GOP's biggest issues, just 31% of the country thinks they're right. In fact, looking through the internals, voters prefer the Democratic plan in every demographic -- gender, race, age, income, and region. The only groups who prefer the GOP approach are self-identified Republicans and self-identified conservatives.

In other words, Dems can and should feel like they have the upper hand here. They're prepared to fight for lower rates for the middle- and lower-classes, while the GOP goes to bat for millionaires and billionaires.

For all the Republican bravado, this seems like a far stronger issue for Democrats. It's not a bad election-year fight to have.

From David Dayen at Firedoglake, proof of just how destructive keeping the Bush Deficit Exploders will be:

For example, the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. If they were to be extended, they would add a crushing burden to the deficit. Sarah Palin’s hand notwithstanding, it’s generally considered that extending all the tax cuts would increase the deficit by $3.1 trillion dollars over the next ten years. An imperfectly derived but somewhat approximate percentage of that for 2014 would be $310 billion.

Read the whole thing.

And from Down with Tyranny, some Bush Deficit Exploders myths and facts:

Meanwhile, leave it to Karina in Speaker Pelosi's office to bust the myths-- a nice way of saying "call out the lies"-- that McConnell and Boehner and their cronies are trying to foist on the American public. Click the link for all the supporting evidence but basically, here are the facts:

MYTH: Democrats plan a $3.8 trillion tax increase on January 1st.

FACT: NOT TRUE! President Obama’s FY 2011 budget proposes $1.7 trillion in tax relief-- extending the 2001, 2003 tax cuts for middle-class families, including the child tax credit, reductions in rates, and marriage penalty relief for middle class Americans, while allowing “tax cuts that affect families earning more than $250,000 a year” to expire. This would mean no tax change for 98% of American families and at least 97% of small businesses. And for the wealthiest 2% of Americans with an average income of $800,000 per year, the top marginal tax rate would return to the level at the end of the 1990s, a time of remarkable job growth and economic strength.

MYTH: Letting the tax cuts for the wealthiest few expire will hurt small business.

FACT: NOT TRUE! At least 97% of small businesses would not pay a penny more due to letting these upper-income tax rates expire, according to a range of experts.

MYTH: Extending Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is the best way to stimulate the economy.

FACT: NOT TRUE! In fact, it’s just the opposite-- the Congressional Budget Office and other independent experts on the economy have concluded that tax breaks for the wealthy provide just about the lowest return on investment of any federal stimulus activity.

MYTH: Tax cuts pay for themselves.

FACT: NOT TRUE! A range of experts from President Bush’s top economic adviser to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan all conclude that tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Time magazine explains, “virtually every economics Ph.D. who has worked in a prominent role in the Bush Administration acknowledges that the tax cuts enacted during the past six years have not paid for themselves–and were never intended to. Harvard professor Greg Mankiw, chairman of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005, even devotes a section of his best-selling economics textbook to debunking the claim that tax cuts increase revenues.”

Bush Deficit Exploders. Bush Deficit Exploders. Bush Deficit Exploders.