{"id":4358,"date":"2010-09-20T23:26:40","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T03:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4358"},"modified":"2010-09-20T23:58:59","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T03:58:59","slug":"no-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/20\/no-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"no conflict&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/09\/20\/AR2010092005699.html\" target=\"_blank\">Fearing a soaring deficit, many analysts favor letting Bush tax cuts expire<\/a><br \/> Washington Post<\/strong><br \/> By Lori Montgomery<br \/> September 20, 2010<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"> The tax cuts at the heart of a fierce pre-election battle on Capitol  Hill were designed when the economy was booming, the federal budget was  in surplus and George W. Bush was campaigning for president on a promise  to return the extra cash to taxpayers. Today, the economy is sluggish and the national debt is soaring to  worrisome levels. As lawmakers bicker over whether to extend the  Bush-era tax cuts, not just for the middle class but also for the  wealthy, many economists and budget analysts say there&#8217;s a simple way to  curb borrowing: Let the tax cuts expire for everyone.  <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"> Official and independent budget estimates show that letting tax rates  spring back to pre-Bush levels for all taxpayers would bring the country  within striking distance of meeting President Obama&#8217;s goal of balancing  the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015. &quot;If we actually ended the Bush-era tax cuts, that would pretty much do  it,&quot; Obama&#8217;s recently departed budget director, Peter Orszag, said in an  interview last week with CNN&#8217;s Fareed Zakaria. &quot;If you do a bit on the  spending side and then end the tax cuts, you pretty much get there.&quot; <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\"> But for all the election-year hand-wringing about deficits, no one in  Washington is talking about letting the tax cuts lapse on schedule in  January. Instead, Senate Republicans have offered a measure that would  extend all the cuts, adding nearly $4 trillion to the debt over the next  decade. This week, Senate Democrats say they plan to unveil a bill that  would preserve most of the cuts for most Americans. That would add  nearly $2 trillion to deficits by 2020. Obama argues that letting the cuts expire for the wealthiest 3 million  taxpayers &#8211; one of the chief differences between the two Senate  proposals &#8211; is more fiscally responsible than the GOP&#8217;s position. &quot;The  first thing you do when you&#8217;re in a hole is not dig it deeper,&quot; he said  at a town hall meeting Monday in Washington.<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"180\" hspace=\"4\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/wp-admin\/..\/images\/bush_tax_cuts.gif\" \/> <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"> But the Democrats&#8217; plan also represents a pretty big shovel, budget analysts said. &quot;Both parties are being disingenuous here,&quot; said Robert Bixby, executive  director of the nonprofit Concord Coalition, which advocates balanced  budgets. &quot;When I hear the Democrats saying Republicans are willing to  add to the deficit, well, the Democrats are willing to add $2 trillion  to the deficit themselves. The Democrats are doing almost as much damage  to the deficit as the Republicans are&quot;&#8230;<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Sometimes, I feel no conflict at all about something. It feels really good to me, though what I want to do here probably won&#8217;t happen. We shouldn&#8217;t have had the Bush Tax cuts in the first place. We hadn&#8217;t paid off enough of Reagan&#8217;s massive debt. After we had the Bush Tax Cuts and then went to war, two wars, we should have undone them to pay for the war. Now, when everyone is going crazy about the deficit, we should let them expire to begin to pay for our past sins. I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;s the right thing to do. Cut and dried. No conflict at all on this issue&#8230; <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fearing a soaring deficit, many analysts favor letting Bush tax cuts expire Washington Post By Lori Montgomery September 20, 2010 The tax cuts at the heart of a fierce pre-election battle on Capitol Hill were designed when the economy was booming, the federal budget was in surplus and George W. Bush was campaigning for president [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}