The Bush Tax Cuts : a very brief history of the WHY and HOW

[underpants]

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/03/bushies-celebrates-taxes/

The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz interviewed Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director, and Andy Card, Bush’s former chief of staff, among others, and they were pleased at how the expiration debate has played out:

“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.” <...>

“(Democrats) are definitely on the defensive,” Card says. “The fact that the 10-year clock ran out now had a big impact on the election.”

There was a more sinister motive for sunsetting the tax cuts beyond politics, as well. It allowed the administration to pass the bill with a lower vote count in the Senate than would otherwise be necessary. Card freely admits to Kurtz that the administration wanted “the law to be permanent but couldn’t muster the votes to trump the Byrd Rule,” which would have required a 60-vote margin for a measure that significantly increases the federal deficit more than 10 years in the future. By setting the tax cuts to expire just short of ten years, the measure passed with 58 votes.

Such deception and fiscal irresponsibility hardly seem cause for celebration. But because it appears that all of the tax cuts will once again be extended, resetting the fiscal time bomb in spite of public opposition, perhaps these Bush officials are justified in their mirth

[gateley]

1. This has been posted already, but I think it's worth another post for those who haven't

seen it.

Despicable. Not a concern about the welfare of the country or its citizens. Only themselves.

[Zoeisright]

2. Look at that. Two drunk turds.

Also two excellent cases for retroactive abortion.