"Democrats sounded almost giddy... ...If Bush's tax cuts expire in 2010, the middle class will in fact be hit with a massive tax increase." "...The pretense of a "fiscally responsible" budget, by the way, is just that — a pretense.... ...this budget will not be balanced, and anyone who believes that is delusional. Remember this the next time you hear someone criticize Bush on spending...." "...This is supply-side economics in reverse..."
Well, it looks like this discussion has already died out but I'll add a few thoughts now that I have a chance. First of all, I think that calling the expiration of the Bush tax cuts the "largest tax hike in our history" is a bit disingenuous. I suspect that they are measuring this in current dollars or, at the very least, are not measuring it as a percentage of GDP. Why not just call it what it is, expiration of the Bush tax cuts and return of the tax code to where it was in 2000?
Of course, I doubt that the full tax cut will ever be allowed to expire by either party. I've long thought that Bush's tax cuts would likely end up morphing into a tax cut for middle and lower-income workers. They likely would have gotten by without the tax cut. But now that it is in effect, I doubt that there will be any call to let the increased child tax credit, the "marriage-penalty fix", or the new 10 percent tax bracket expire. If there is any call for increased taxes, it will likely come from letting the upper-income tax cuts expire. That's the problem with passing unsustainable tax cuts. The first ones that are likely to go will be those for upper-income workers.