It is a huge gamble not to extend taxcuts for the wealthy?

[kentuck]

At least, that is what we are supposed to believe.

It is a huge gamble because the "fragile" economy may slide back into a deeper recession. This is what President Obama is being told and what he apparently believes. He does not want the economy to slip back into a double dip decline.

So, these are the cards he is holding.

But there are other options. He could use the $700 billion saved from the wealthy taxcuts to give the working and middle class another taxcut or a cash refund to stimulate the economy. Or he could let all the taxcuts expire but let the middle class taxcuts expire 1% per year until they are back to previous Clinton levels, and it would not be a drastic shock on anyone in the middle class. But the tax cuts for the wealthy would end immediately - at midnight of the last day of this year.

But, if the taxcuts were going to help the economy, it would have already done so. There is no evidence of that. It would help much more to put more money in the pockets of those that would spend it. That would create more jobs than a taxcut for the wealthy.

[polichick]

1. The only gamble is that those wealthy folks might not fork over campaign money...

...in ten years those tax cuts did not create jobs.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. They won't fork over anyway, now that Citizens United had made it

so their corporations can donate instead.

[polichick]

17. That's right - so there's no risk in letting those tax cuts lapse. nt

[Exilednight]

2. Ten years of tax cuts: That's what got us here to begin with. n/t

[laughingliberal]

3. Always a gamble to do something 75% of the public supports (letting cuts on upper brackets expire).

SSDD. Blackmail by the elite. They've over played their hand, though. They've had the tax cut for a decade-a decade when we did worse than we have in over 50 years with wealth disparity worse than the Great Depression.

Heh, they'd have done better by throwing a few jobs out the past 6 months. Then they could have threatened that raising their taxes would stop the job growth. At this point people just go, 'what job growth?'

[dkf]

4. Actually the gamble is that along with the top tax cuts comes the middle class tax cuts.

All or nothing.

[kentuck]

5. And who would be to blame?

in actuality? In reality? Why?

[dkf]

7. In a game of chicken who is to blame?

If you are both charging 100mph straight at each other waiting for the other guy to blink who is at fault if you crash?

[kentuck]

11. We are not charging 100mph...

We are only offering a taxcut to the middle class and the Republicans want to block it. We don't have to tell you why, do we?

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. And is that seriously a problem?

Sure, everybody LIKES having a little more money, but I, for one, would rather see a recovering economy than an extra $1000 at the end of the year. After all, when the economy rebounds I could maybe get back the 2nd job I had that went away a couple months ago, and that would give me a lot more than that thousand dollars.

[dkf]

13. The question is what happens to a potential rebound if we raise taxes.

[kentuck]

14. The Republicans take credit if it is good...

...and they blame the Democrats if it is bad. We all know that.

[dkf]

15. Beyond credit or blame there is a whole lot of hurt if things get messed up.

The economy feels somewhat stable but who knows how things will turn out.

[kentuck]

16. Then we will have to fix them, won't we?

That is why we are Democrats, remember?

[craigmatic]

6. It's not a gamble they're not investing the money they have. Why give them more?

[bemildred]

10. The huge gamble would be not raising taxes to reduce the deficit. nt

[kentuck]

12. Bingo!

Very true, in my opinion. And the deficit will be the major issue in the next election. The President has an opportunity to finally cut and bring confidence back to our economy. If he doesn't, it will be used against him in two short years.

[DirkGently]

18. The only balancing of interests here is the public interest vs. wealthy campaign donations.