Republicans, this is what Mark Zandi actually said about the Bush tax cuts...

[flpoljunkie]

The Tax Cut We Can Afford
By MARK ZANDI

Published: August 14, 2010

UNLESS Congress and President Obama act soon, Americans’ taxes will increase in 2011, when the cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are due to expire. Almost everyone agrees that this makes little sense given the economy’s fragility. But consensus ends there. The president supports permanently extending the current tax rates for all except the highest-income households, while Congressional Republicans want the entire basket of cuts to be made permanent. The prudent middle ground would be to forestall any tax increases in 2011 and to phase in higher rates on upper-income households in 2012, when the economy will be on firmer ground.

On the other hand, the Republican proposal to keep the current tax rates permanently in place even for the wealthy takes an unnecessary gamble with our long-term fiscal outlook. Tax cuts do not pay for themselves. Even when President Ronald Reagan slashed much higher tax rates in half, this argument failed; in the current tax debate, it is unsupportable. By definition, high-income households are where the money is; higher rates would raise substantial revenue for long-term deficit reduction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15zandi.html