Ezra Klein Is Wrong on the Bush Tax Cuts

Anyone that cares the least bit about fiscal responsibility will tell you that the largest contributor to our nation's budgets woes are the Bush Tax Cuts.  Every year the cuts add about $500 billion to the deficit.  A deficit that was a surplus when Clinton gave the reigns to Bush but that's ancient history no one wants to recall anymore (and if you do, you aren't a Real American anymore).

Next in line for being the second largest contributor to our budget deficit are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet more Bush Legacies that keep on giving and giving to the American people.  He was a great guy.  So if we take away those two huge chunks of debt, as you can see from this very pretty chart below, we are left with some manageable problems.

I've posted this chart a couple different times, mainly because it's so pretty, but not quite as pretty as Ezra Klein.  I noted last week that Klein was so pretty that arguing with him was pointless.  Alas, though, we just can't magically wipe out the two huge orange-ish colored chunks.  I know, I know.  Republicans do it all the time (the link is a classic) in their Fantasy World, but we are forced to deal with reality on this one.  Which is why Klein's statement on the matter is about as clueless and irresponsible as anything he's ever written.

But the plan was never to have the tax cuts expire. Instead, the idea was that people would get used to the new tax rates, and no future Congress would want to allow a big tax increase, so when the time came, either Republicans in office would extend the cuts or Republicans in the minority would hammer Democrats until they extended them. And that's where we are now: Democrats control the government, so Republicans are screaming about tax increases as a way to get Democrats to extend tax cuts.

I have no clue where Klein has been this last decade but that was not the plan at all.  The plan was for a Permanent Republican Majority.  There was never any talk of people getting used to the new tax rate and then while in the minority Republicans would hammer the socialist liberal Democrats until they extended them.  That was never the plan.  It has always been Republicans would remain in power permanently, nee FOREVER.  This hogwash about Republicans screaming about increasing taxes is a diversion away from what really happened in 2001 and 2003.  It's a good thing you are so good looking Ezra Klein.  Life would be cruel if you weren't.

In case you haven't caught on yet, the two biggest contributors to the deficit can be wiped out this year, if not by the end of next year.  Crying about those crying about tax increases ignores the fact that Democrats are about to own the two largest deficit producers in America's history.  And that's exactly what the Republicans want, given that their original plan didn't work and all.