After the trouncing the democrats in the House took earlier this month in the General Election, little is expected to get accomplished during the lame duck session that starts today. But one issue that is certainly to become the main focus will be whether or not to let the unfunded Bush Tax Cuts for the rich expire as originally planned ten years ago by Bush and his Republican congress who enacted the giveaway.
The unfunded tax cuts which are set to expire December 31, 2010 at midnight added $2.5 trillion to the national debt over the ten years. Republicans in 2001 and 2003 said that the tax cuts would lower our budget deficit and our national debt, but they had the complete opposite affect.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —President George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
Bush was wrong again, those same Republicans are telling you that they want to extend the unfunded Bush tax cuts for the rich and make the cuts permanent, and they again say this will lower our deficit and our national debt, again. The Tea Party and Republican base who seem to like cutting the tip of their noses off are saying, fool me once, fool me again, and again and again and again.
And to show that Republicans only care for the wealthiest people in our country, the proud Republicans are saying that the few dollars that went to the middle class will NOT be extended unless the rich get to be richer first, and the GOP base, who have cut the tips of their noses off all say, yeah lets do that.
Democrats want to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, and let the tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of our country expire. Silly democrats, that would take moxie, and they don’t have any.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that by making the Bush tax cuts permanent for the richest in America we will add $70 billion a year to our debt, a figure that Republicans do not disagree with, they simply ignore it.
But Republicans who campaigned as "deficit hawks" and lowering our National Debt, also campaigned on making the Bush tax cuts permanent. You can’t have both, but trying to make those with their noses cut off understand this, is not easy to do.
Democrats and President Obama prior to this past General Election, all took a stand saying that the unfunded tax cuts for the rich would not be extended and that they would be allowed to expire, while the middle class tax cuts would be extended. And as expected, Democrats, including the President are mostly all backing away from that campaign promise.
So here we are, the lame duck session (season) begins today and the tax cuts for the rich are set to expire in about six week. The democrats who still control both the House and the Senate until next year have three choices, they can just let the unfunded tax cuts all expire, they can push for the middle class tax cuts to stay and let the tax cuts for the rich expire, or they can all cave and extend them all while adding to the deficit and the national debt.
Going by their past performance, the Democrats will cave, and give into the Republican demands and allow billions more in unfunded tax cuts to go to the rich. Why, because they are scared to stand by their principals, they are Democrats.