About those Bush tax cuts...

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, they'd be bad, really bad, for the economy if extended. Ezra Klein:

CBO Director Doug Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee [yesterday] and dropped something of a bombshell. Extending the Bush tax cuts, he said, will "probably reduce income relative to what would otherwise occur in 2020." The reason is simple: Debt.

Elmendorf doesn't deny that tax cuts stimulate the economy. But they don't stimulate it that much, he says, and over the long run, the net economic growth from the tax cuts will be quite small. The net deficit impact won't be.

It's common sense, isn't it? You tax less, you take in less -- and the resulting economic stimulation isn't enough to offset that loss, which, in this case, would be huge.

Which makes you realize, if you hadn't realized it already, that the Republicans don't care about the economy, to the extent they understand it at all, just about making the rich richer and scoring easy political points off the tax issue (because who likes to pay taxes?).

So if you really want to elect Republicans in November, if you really want to give them the keys to the ship of state, be advised that while you may end up with a few extra bucks in your pocket (perhaps at the expense of key government programs that you likely benefit from more than you know), mainly if you're already well-off, the long-term health of the economy, in their recklessly irresponsible hands, will suffer greatly.