Congressional Democrats Eliminate Budget Deficit

You read that right. By failing to vote on extending the Bush tax cuts that repugs scheduled to expire on December 31, Congressional Democrats added $1.4 trillion to federal revenues, thus completely eliminating the budget deficit shit pile bush and the repugs left for Obama.

Ezra Klein last week:

Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would be just about enough to hit Obama's goal of balancing the budget (minus interest payments) by 2015. That's all they'd need: One non-act. Better: There'd be no sixty-vote threshold. You'd just need a veto of any extension bills and 34 votes to protect the veto in the Senate.

The New York Times last month:

According to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the Bush tax cuts would add $2.3 trillion to the total 2018 debt. The single biggest step our government could take this year to address the structural deficit would be to let the tax cuts expire. And a credible commitment to long-term fiscal sustainability should reduce interest rates today, helping to stimulate the economy.

Critics say that this amounts to increasing taxes at a time of high unemployment, and that instead the tax cuts should be extended as a stimulus measure. This overlooks the fact that tax cuts are an inefficient form of stimulus, because many people choose to save their additional income instead of spending it.

If the goal is to encourage growth and employment immediately, it would be better to let the tax cuts expire and dedicate some of the increased revenue to real stimulus programs.

At the same time, Congressional Democrats committed political suicide, but apparently considered it a small price to pay to eliminate the deficit that was strangling the economy.

Either that, or they are, you know, too fucking stupid to live.

Politically, not holding a vote to extend the tax cuts - middle-class OR rich - is the same thing as voting to ... wait for it .... raise taxes.

And THAT's what the repugs will hit dems with nonstop for the next 40 days.

As both Digby and Steve M. explain, this is actually a win for the rich, because defeated dems in the lame duck session will cave to the repugs and extend tax custs for the rich.

That's assuming that the repugs gain seats in both houses, which everybody except me thinks is inevitable.

So, on the principle of if you don't laugh you'll have to kill yourself, your new election mantra is "Democrats eliminated the budget deficit."