Economist Mom Sends President Obama To His Room On Tax Day
I was looking for something clever to post on Tax Day and found it courtesy of Diane Lim Rogers at EconomistMom:
For all the complaining you have done on your Senate campaign trail, and then your presidential campaign trail, and now even as President about how unaffordable and unfair and in general not very smart the Bush tax cuts were, why is it that the centerpiece of your–emphasis on your–tax policy thus far is the deficit-financed extension of the vast majority of these very same (not very smart) tax cuts?
Why do you spend over $2 trillion in your budget–the most you spend on any single policy item–on your predecessor’s tax policy, which you repeatedly explain is to blame for the deterioration and unsustainability of our nation’s fiscal outlook? Meanwhile, you took back your own ideas for new tax policy–such as the permanent extension of the Making Work Pay tax credit–because you decided to put higher standards on your own tax cuts and actually pay for them (offset their cost with offsetting revenue increases such as climate change revenues), and Congress (even your own Congress) therefore balked.
I have news for you: you’re in charge now! You aren’t stuck with the (not very smart) Bush tax cuts–not any part of them! You are the one who will have to sign an entirely new piece of legislation in order to keep any part of the Bush tax cuts after this year. You hold the reins. You don’t have to stay on the Bush path. You don’t even have to stay on the Bush tax policy horse. You can switch horses altogether and go down a better path on your better horse.
Is the simple answer that governing and campaigning are two very different activities? Read the whole thing.
Keeping the tax cuts for now
I don't see how we can raise taxes on the middle-class in the middle of a great recession, even if it has officially ended. On the other hand, I don't see that we - via the economy - get anything for the tax cuts for the uberwealthy. Also I seem to recall Obama promising no tax increases for the middle class. I suppose that is up for discussion nowadays but I'm not surprised he'd want to keep those particular tax cuts for now.
Don't they expire after next year?
Yes, Obama could work hard to cut a year or so off of George W. Bush's deficit financed, totally failed social experiment in cutting taxes for the wealthy, but how much political capital is it worth burning? Yes, Obama is in charge, but he isn't a dictator. Trying the repeal the Bush tax cuts a year early would take a great deal of effort with the Republicans fighting every inch of the way and nervous Democrats griping about having to repeal a "tax cut" during an election year, especially since the tax cut is going away in a year anyway.