If the Bush tax cuts are not renewed, then some of the blame should rest with the Republican House, Senate, and White House that lacked the courage to push through tax cuts unburdened by sunset provisions. Their argument at the time was that sunsetting the cuts was the only way to ensure passage. My tinfoil hat opinion is that the sunsetting was a too clever by half political gamble to create an election issue for 2008 and 2010 - useful if they’re in the minority (The Dems are raising taxes!) or the majority (We’ll extend the tax cuts for eight years!).
See post #11.