Wimps: Democrats May Let Bush Tax Cuts Expire Instead Of Voting Them Down

So that means, despite years of complaining about how they were unfair “tax cuts for the rich,” the Democrats are going to let them ride for another two years.

Congressional Democrats have spent the past eight years itching for a chance to undo their least favorite Bush-era policies.
But it increasingly looks like one of the administration’s initiatives most often criticized by Democrats — tax cuts for top earners — won’t get touched by the 111th Congress. As he worries about doing anything that could dampen his economic recovery efforts, President-elect Barack Obama has been vague about whether he wants Congress to repeal the tax cuts or just let them expire as scheduled Dec. 31, 2010. He said earlier this week that he would wait for a recommendation from his recently appointed economic team.
Republicans are likely to continue their efforts to extend all of the Bush-era tax cuts (PL 107-16, PL 108-27) beyond their expiration date, providing automatic objections to repeal. Meanwhile, and more strikingly, some key Democratic tax writers in Congress are now saying that they, too, want to let the clock run out.

Democrats have been carping about the Bush tax cuts for years. Obama complained about the Bush tax cuts endlessly on the campaign trail. Now that they’ve got control of both Congress and the White House they’re not going to do anything about them? They’re going to let them go on for two more years? If the tax cuts were so awful, shouldn’t they want to vote them down immediately to end the “unfairness” of them now instead of later?
I have two reactions to this:
First, this tells me they weren’t nearly as bad as they’ve been telling us.
Second, this tells me that even Democrats understand that tax hikes in the midst of a recession are a bad, bad idea.
Which means that, on the Bush tax cuts…Republicans had it right all along.
By the way, remember when people like Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad were trying to tell us that “rolling back” the Bush tax cuts wasn’t really a tax hike? Are they going to apologize for being liars now?