deficits to continue breaking records

[Danzig]

here's the main issue...if the tax cuts are just allowed to expire, they don't just raise the tax rate on the rich. they raise them on everyone. so, when obama says just let them expire, which is his plan, he's advocating a huge tax increase on the poor and the middle class, not just the wealthy as he would have you believe. and that's why many democrats are speaking out against the plan, they don't want across the board increases.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38400016...new_york_times

Epic battle looms in Washington over expiring Bush tax cuts
Fight to serve as proxy for bigger political clashes

From both political and policy perspectives, the tax issue is dizzyingly complex, and even some of Washington’s most grizzled legislative operatives say they cannot predict the outcome.

Some liberals want Mr. Obama to keep his promise to raise taxes on the rich, and the White House’s budget forecasts rely heavily on rolling the top income tax rates back to their pre-2001 levels. Some fiscal hawks warn that extending the tax cuts would add more than $2 trillion to the federal budget deficits at a time when the national debt is becoming an economic concern and a political issue. Political economists are fiercely divided.


The issue is further complicated by the rising concern among voters about the federal deficit, which would be increased by roughly $1.5 trillion over 10 years just by continuing the tax breaks for the middle class. Many economists say the nation’s debt load is already headed to risky levels.

But some lawmakers, including Mr. Wyden, say the deficit concerns and the attention on the debt commission could help forge a deal: a short-term continuation of the tax cuts for the middle class, and perhaps some new tax breaks for businesses, that would buy lawmakers time to undertake a broad overhaul of the tax code in the next Congress.