[thrownaway2424]

Everybody knew that the Bush top-bracket rate cuts were temporary, too. And yet the entire argument revolves around extending them. Nobody is arguing that we should extend the lower rates on payroll. That is remarkable.

[ericdykstra]

It's interesting how temporary tax cuts always seem to expire, but temporary taxes never seem to.

[fennecfoxen]

Add to this temporary spending programs. GWBush's last year added ~$1 trillion in "emergency" spending, growing federal spending by an astounding ~50%, and SOMEHOW four years later it's turned into entitlements and the like, part of the permanent spending baseline.

(This is the same baseline-based math which calls a reduction in the rate of spending growth some sort or another of a "devastating cut", naturally, though you'll see more ostentatious examples of this rhetoric with California's recent education-policy games than you will at the national level.)

[orangecat]

Well, there seems to be universal agreement that the "temporary" tax cuts for the non-rich should be made permanent. With which I disagree; if we want to have an expensive welfare state and police the world, we should have the honesty to pay for it.