Legal Commentary

Deficit Hawk Senators Oppose Tax Cuts For The Rich

By Big Tent Democrat

While The Hill titles the article Dems, Obama Divided Over Locking In Bush Tax Cuts, the real news out of this article for me is the emergence of honest to goodness deficit hawks in the Senate (as opposed to the phony ones you see on Sunday talk shows. From the article:

Several senators, including Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan (N.D.), are hesitant about giving up an estimated $1.5 trillion in revenue over the next decade, when the federal deficit is unsustainable and there are no obvious spending cuts to fix it. They say it would be smarter to pass a short-term extension of the expiring Bush tax cuts for families earning less than $250,000, then re-evaluate tax policy in a year or two when the economy is stronger.

“I think a far better approach is to extend the middle-income tax cuts for two years and then make a judgment,” said Dorgan. “I don’t think we should get locked into any specifics. It locks us in to say this is going to be permanent,” added Sen. Tom Udall (N.M.). [. . .] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), an influential member of the Senate Democratic Conference, said a temporary extension is “worth talking about.” [. . .] Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said he would support a short-term extension of the middle-class cuts. “I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “As long as we get them extended now, so we get past the early part of next year with the economy still in extremis in a lot of states like my own.

(Emphasis supplied.) I think that President Obama has played the issue shrewdly - demanding permanent tax cuts for the middle class and vehemently opposing tax cuts for the rich. Real deficit hawks now have a position they can flock to - temporary middle class tax cuts and NO tax cuts for the rich. This can work.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 29, 2010 (boomark / email).