Obama denies that he's caving on extending the Bush tax cuts for people making over $250,000. This won't end the hyperventilating over things Axelrod said. Nothing will, unless Obama actually beheads John Boehner with a katana on live TV.
I'm not that concerned with a temporary extension of the tax cuts on everyone. The Republicans oppose that because it would just put them into a dilemma in 2012. That fight would crowd out whatever other obstructionist grandstanding they want to do that year and it might be really unpopular if the economy has improved. Also, it is true that there is some anti-stimulative effect to raising even rich people's taxes, although there are way, way better ways of spending all that money (like, say, directly hiring the unemployed to do stuff we need done. Just a thought.) So, I'm roughly indifferent to the outcome if the choice is repeal the tax cuts for the wealthy or extend them one or two years. The unacceptable outcome is extending them indefinitely or for more than two years.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program of people breathing rapidly into paper bags.
Er, pretty sure recent research suggested that these days borrowing money is worse for the economy than taxing rich people. Which is a way of saying that taking rich people is actually stimulative.
Posted by: Protagoras | November 12, 2010 at 08:38 PM