Hoyer: Permanent middle class tax cuts too costly

> A top House Democrat said Tuesday that tax increases will eventually be necessary to address the nation’s mounting debt, raising a difficult election-year issue as Democrats fight retain control of Congress. > > In the near term, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer raised the possibility that Congress will only temporarily extend middle-class tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. He pointedly suggested that making them permanent would be too costly. There’s no such thing as a “permanent” tax cut. The tax code is altered constantly. You can set up a tax cut that doesn’t have an expiration date, which is what Obama is suggesting, but that doesn’t make it “permanent.” Congress can go in at any time and re-raise whatever they want.

Politically, members of congress never want to be seen as “raising” taxes. But letting cuts expire vs. voting to raise them? There’s no difference, really. The attack add says you “raised taxes” either way. So I don’t see what the argument is here.

Calling cuts “permanent” sounds better to the American people, who desperately need a little good news right now economically. So why not just do that and move on? We’ll raise taxes when the time comes, once our economy is back on track and people can afford higher taxes. No need to remind us of that now.