The Compromise

The Bush tax cuts were extended for two years this week, plus a generous estate tax break was added*, unemployment benefits extended, and payroll tax cuts added. I could have sworn I wrote about this a few months ago, but that must have been the post that I remember writing for a really long time and then abruptly deleting everything. So it goes.

Anyways, I won't go into the details of the plan; there are stories all over about it. Basically taxes won't increase next year, which is good for taxpayers and bad for our deficit, if you happen to care about that as much as the incoming Republican class does.

The most striking thing about all of this to me can be summed up well by this paragraph from this article by EJ Dionne Jr.:

"And at least these negotiations have had the benefit of proving conclusively that the only people for whom conservative Republicans will go to the mat are the country's best-off citizens—and deficits be damned."

Politics frustrate me.

*I'm going to add a footnote that the 2010 rate for estates over $1 million is 0, but is due to revert to its pre-Bush levels of 55% next year. The number agreed upon is now 35%, which some (mostly the Right) consider a tax hike (which it is, relative to the current 0%), while most consider it a tax cut, since it will only jump to 35% instead of 55% next year, as it would have if the bill hadn't passed.