Last fall the Bush tax cuts were due to expire and Obama

[doc03]

agreed to extend them. Rush Limbaugh says eliminating the Bush tax cuts isn't going to happen, the Republican House won't vote for it. I was under the impression they will automatically expire after 2 years. Do they automatically expire or will it require a vote to eliminate them?

[ingac70]

1. They are suppose to automatically expire....

but Repubs and Blue Dogs won't let that happen.

[doc03]

4. I suppose it will be a replay of the last time then, the Republicans

will hold the tax cuts for lower wage earners hostage to get the tax cuts for the rich. I think if the President would show some leadership for a change and stand his ground for once he could win that fight. The polls I have seen show people are overwhelmingly in favor of raising taxes on the rich.

[Thav]

15. While I'd rather not have taxes for the working class go up

I'd rather seem them ALL expire rather than have the rich continue to get lower tax rates.

The stock market is back where it was, pretty much, before the great recession, however there are a ton more unemployed people, and the rich are getting richer. Where's the jobs, Boner?

[roguevalley]

11. anyone who enabled that abomination to continue lost all moral

authority to say or do anything. I don't think there are enough lifetimes for the people who did this and Obama is included to pay back the debt they owe to millions of people. People are dead because of this and they just stand there grinning like idiots and talking bull. I hate them all.

[Marr]

2. I'd love to set up a betting pool on how this will turn out. How many of

the apologists would put down real cash on those tax cuts being allowed to expire, I wonder.

[Donnachaidh]

13. pools should be started around the country

Hell, it's the only way the middle class and poor will get ANY financial aid from this administration.

[Poboy]

18. Easy money. None of them would take that bet, because the KNOW their boy is a republican STOOGE.

[Rex]

3. When you whore out the idea that wealthy people create jobs

and that the govt should have nothing to do with creating jobs...you wonder why they yell 'jobs jobs jobs' during election time like it means anything. Really, it means nothing to the 'haves'. They pay other people to work for them.

[patrice]

5. Recall that just before Obama extended them, the House voted to extend the Middle Class tax cuts

without the upper bracket cuts, which was NEVER going to happen and which also communicated to the opposition that there was no Middle Class stomach to take the hit from the tax increases, so all they had to do was keep the upper bracket cuts tied to the lower ones in the Senate. That's the pressure that Obama gave in to, obviating a big fight over something that was never going to go our way anyway, once the House showed that we didn't have the gut to do it.

[patrice]

6. The House pulled this bit of theater for the benefit of the Middle Class and it cost us the driver's

seat on the Budget Cuts, which then eventually came down on the Poor more than they did upon the Middle Class.

[SDuderstadt]

7. You forgot the GOP...

held the extension of unemployment benefits hostage.

[patrice]

8. Yep. That helped create some of the pressure to avoid a big hassel over this in the Senate.

I couldn't BELIEVE that Pelosi did this, but Cornell West said some interesting things to Ed Schultz recently about the Black Congressional Caucus abandoning the poor in this last Congress and then there were, of course, the Middle Class "Lefties" to entice away from flirting with "third" party pitches by making it look as though the House was standing up against Tax Cuts for the upper brackets, so Pelosi didn't do it all by herself. It was ALL baloney, having your cake and eating it too, because it played right directly into the hands of Tax Cuts for the Rich.

[patrice]

9. AND we lost the high ground on Budget Cuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! nt

[Cresent City Kid]

10. The lame dick session

Arguing the existence of Santa Claus makes more sense than debating the "merits" of trickle down, especially at a time with the country in a shambles with clear proof it was the culprit. Not only have we lost the high ground on budget cuts, the 2012 election will now be a referendum on trickle down, a fight the Dems shrank from in 2010. They didn't pass a middle class tax cut extension before the election out of fear of ads portraying the expiration of tax cuts for the rich as a tax hike. Not only was this rationale ridiculous, the ads came anyway, those and worse.

Let's not wait for the next election, or for the expiration of the current law. TAX THE RICH NOW.

[patrice]

17. They ALSO shrank from passing the end of DADT & The Dream Act right then too. It took

Lieberman's special favors to deliver the end of DADT and they tabled The Dream Act, which may never see the light of day again if they don't grow a spine.

Interesting how ALL of this happened at the same time.

[Change has come]

12. Last fall, Democrats should have passed the fricken budget...

That we are still stressing about today. But, they didn't want to "lose" the election. :mad:

[global1]

14. You Mean The One That They Lost Anyway?........nt

[Ikonoklast]

16. Blame McConnell for that, he filibustered it.

The Republicans killed any budget vote in the Senate.