Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would have been better for the economy, but difficult from a political prospective. Republicans had Obama cornered where he had to keep the tax cuts for the wealthy in order to keep the middle class part of the Bush tax cut. Really, he should have just allowed the whole thing to expire.
Tax cuts are said to create jobs, but this isn't happening. Where are the jobs? There's more to job creation than just tax policy.
Even if the middle class pays more taxes, it isn't that big a price to pay for having the wealthy pay more.
Without some tax increases, the government has to borrow too much money to pay for things that people seem to want. Medicare, veterans benefits, your grandmother in a nursing home, the military.
Maybe we should cut all these things, but I don't see many people jumping in support of big Medicare cuts, for instance.
When Congressman Ryan came out with his prototype of a "no new taxes, big spending cuts" budget, Republicans seemed to be slipping in the polls. Medicare is popular and senior citizens tend to be more likely to vote than other age groups.
Now we've got the budget impasse. Seems like taxes will have to go up.
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Or, politically, maybe it's best he did sign the extension of the Bush tax cut. Otherwise he would be getting more blame for our current most likely double dip of the recession for raising taxes. Taxes were not raised, but unemployment is going up again. There really is no recovery. People keep talking about the weak recovery. There isn't really a recovery. Other structural problems are hindering the economy besides taxes. Many of the jobs have been outsourced as the high cost of living and health care, in USA, has made it more expensive to do things here, for instance.
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