Friday, December 17, 2010

This means something - After some grandstanding, the House passed the Bush tax cut extension tonight: "Congress sends tax cut bill to Obama's desk." So deficits will widen (again) but the recovery is so fragile, we can't let tax rates rise. I guess - I'm conflicted.

3 comments:

Nigel Tufnel said...

With the GOP back in control of the House America can expect a return to the kind of fiscal vision we saw during the Bush years.

Sweet.

If the GOP could take back the Senate and White House we will return back to the good old days when conservatives didn't worry about the deficit.

Moebius economics said...

Bush & Cheney proved that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.

another Eric Lindholm said...

I'm conflicted too. I guess Obama dug his own grave by setting unrealistic expectations about how quickly the economy could recover and how much sacrifice would really be necessary. Pretty much the only ones sacrificing are the unemployed and the future generations. Most of those who have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs, as near as I can tell, haven't felt much pinch. Leaving the tax rates low will let the well-off continue to say, "Recession? What recession?"

Maybe the private sector can lead us out of this, but frankly I doubt it. It looks like, just as with climate change and other global perils, we'll keep sweeping the deficit under the rug until disaster is imminent, then go into a panic and apologize, "Well shucks, there's no way we could have seen this coming."

Shame on Obama for not showing true leadership, but shame on the Republicans for exploiting his weakness to advance their trademark self-interested short-sightedness.