Bush tax cuts

House minority whip Steny Hoyer, speaking with reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, said Democrats in Congress "didn't have the votes" in 2009 or 2010 to raise taxes, even though the party had a majority in both the Senate and the House and Barack Obama was president. 

Masscahusetts senator John Kerry admitted today that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will result in a "major tax increase." Kerry is a member of the so-called supercommittee.

"You're guaranteed, unless it's changed, a major tax increase on January 1st, 2013, when the Bush tax cuts expire," Kerry said this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Watch the video below:

A mystery lies at the heart of America’s budget politics. In the weeks since debate began on raising the debt limit, President Obama has faulted Republican budget plans as a way of giving favors to “millionaires and billionaires” at the expense of the poor and aged, just as he did during last winter’s quarrel over retaining the Bush tax cuts. He does this because it places the public firmly on his side.

Mitt Romney has joined Rush Limbaugh and five Republican senators in opposing the deal to extend current tax rates for another two years.

A reader writes:

Interestingly, Romney on the one hand implies that the tax deal will create a huge defiict because its temporary nature won't produce stimulating effects while also saying that the payroll cuts WILL create short term stimulus.

The tax deal reached cloture in the Senate, 83 to 15. But the right-wing debate over the deal continues. Here are some more links for your edification.

Larry Kudlow:

I think conservatives have to keep their eye on economic growth. There’s stuff in the deal that I don’t like, but the overall impact is going to be positive.

The Senate plans to hold a cloture vote today on the tax deal between President Obama and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. TWS supports the deal, for reasons explained in our editorial. Here are some more reasons to support the deal, from some of our favorite bloggers.

Keith Hennessey:

Republican leader John Boehner and Congressman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) spoke briefly to reporters this morning in the Capitol. Boehner, the minority leader who is expected to be elected speaker of the House, and Walden, the chair of the House majority transition team, gave a few details about the incoming Republican majority’s agenda.

When is Congress going to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts? President Obama wants to extend those cuts only for households making less than $250,000. Republicans want to extend all of the tax cuts, at least temporarily, so that the country doesn't raise taxes in the middle of a terribly weak economic recovery.

Minority leader John Boehner, appearing on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday, said he would vote for a bill extending tax rates for everyone but households making more than $250,000 if it's "the only option I have." Clearly he hadn't read this week's editorial!

Assuring everyone that they're unwilling to listen to economic reason, even from the man employed as their budget director a month ago, the White House spokespeople were sent forth this morning to refute the former OMB director's inaugural New York Times column.

There’s a phrase that never crosses President Obama’s lips, even as he prepares to propose new tax cuts for small business.  The phrase:  permanent, across-the-board cuts in marginal tax rates for the wealthy.

Barack Obama understands that it’s bad economics to raise taxes in a recession. It’s “the last thing you want to do,” he said almost exactly one year ago.