Speaking of Trying to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too: Obama to Push for Letting Bush Era Tax Cuts Expire For the Wealthy Only. No Thanks, Mr. President.

That was the word from treasury secretary Tim Geithner today (link to story at bottom). When the Bush era tax cuts expire at the end of this year, Obama is going to push for the tax cuts to expire (meaning a tax increase) for families making more than $250,000 a year, while the rest of us (me included) making less than that will not get the same tax increase (since the tax cuts will be extended for us).

Talk about your pure political gimmick. Obama wants to let the tax cuts expire for everyone, but the same would be politically disastrous (and economically disastrous), so he's going to let the tax cuts stay in place for the group from which most of his votes come (i.e. middle income and lower income Americans). Sorry, Mr. President, but I would prefer that my middle class lot in life be just the same as that of the wealthy.

Put another way, either let the tax cuts expire for all of us, or let them expire for none of us (which is what you should do). The last thing we need is any more of you and your party's politics of division, trying to divide Americans along lines of race and socioeconomic class all the time. Enough already!

My position is that the tax cuts should not be permitted to expire for any American, since that amounts to a tax increase in the middle of an awful recession that we are nowhere close to being out of. Increasing taxes during times like these is just plain economically stupid, as just about any economist (including left-leaning ones) will tell you.

So again, no thanks, Mr. President. You can't buy me off by giving me a benefit and then sticking it to the rich. That does not impress me. And I think you'll find that Independents in large part also cannot be bought off like so many of your dem constituents can be. Sorry, Charlie. Because we are not for sale, and we see right through such gimmickry.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/25/geithner-pushes-plan-to-let-tax-cuts-for-wealthy-expire/?fbid=9_6dtEoUYRk