If this is all about more money for poor and middle class working people...

[jpgray]

Why stop here? Why not cut taxes further? Much further? If you don't support further and deeper cuts, why is that? A threatened New Deal? Validation of an ideology that declares government to be the problem? Aiding the right-wing goal of starving the state? The difficulty of ever raising taxes once they are cut? The long-term impact of tax cuts' persistence on the deficit?

I've read a number of excellent threads defending this deal by outlining exactly how the poor and middle class would suffer loss through taxes if the deal fails and the cuts expire. It certainly is monstrous to take more from those who have least. But why is the line drawn here? If you wouldn't support further tax cuts, and feel the need to draw a line, why are the Bush tax rates so much preferred over the Clinton tax rates?

[earthside]

1. Tax Cuts for Everyone!

Fund Social Security?
Cut the payroll tax!

Fund the wars and the empire?
Cut the estate tax!

Fund environmental protection?
Keep tax rates low on millionaires!

In fact -- let's cut taxes in half for everyone ... or cut them out completely!
The economy will boom like its never boomed before!

The Obama-Bush-Boehner 'deal' is just the beginning.

[JoePhilly]

2. The line is drawn where ever it is, currently.

That's the reality.

For most of the middle class, democrat or republican, they don't care about a tax cut for the rich, they care about one for themselves.

That's why in this case, the middle class will blame Obama and the Dems if the middle class tax cuts expires because the CURRENT LINE will move, and they will pay more than they do now.

And that's all that matters.

As for Clinton rates versus Bush rates ... for the right wing ... they think that taxs now are higher than every in history. That's what the media (Fox) tells them, and they believe it. They think the line has already risen when it has not.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. The Argument Is Tax Relief For The Rich Is The Price We Have To Pay For Tax Relief

The argument is tax relief for the rich is the price we have to pay for tax relief for the middle class and poor given the current political reality.

[jpgray]

4. Why this much relief? Why not more?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Because That Was The Price To Get The Relief We Wanted

Why should we pay more?

[Supersedeas]

6. a price paid to a Republican obstructionist minority--what will the price be when the Majority takes

the House and the margins grow slimmer in the Senate.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. That's An Excellent Question

I do know if this compromise fails, they will come up with a more onerous tax cut bill in the new Congress, sans the goodies, and will find four Dems in the Senate to support it. The president can veto it but I predict he won't, not wanting to renege on his pleadge not to raise taxes on the middle class...

Now, breaking which pledge do you think will hurt him the most, the plegde he made not to increases taxes on 98% of the people or the pleadge he made to raise taxes on 2% of the people.


That is a real fear and needs to be taken into any calcuation.

[jpgray]

7. Why not give the poor and middle class more tax relief?

Between the Clinton rates and a rate of zero, why is the Bush rate the best place to draw the line, in your opinion? If cutting taxes that far is useful, why not cut them further for the middle class and poor?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Because This Is The Best Compromise We Could Get

There comes a point where how much any entity collects is so out of sync with what it spends that it has a real problem.

[niceypoo]

10. We will never know the answer

Because Obama capitulated it all away