Conrad And Lieberman Come Out In Favor Of Allowing Wealthy To Keep Their Massive Bush Tax Cuts

Currently, the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire at the end of this year. Progressives have long planned to allow the tax cuts for the richest Americans to expire, which would help ease the U.S. debt burden. Unfortunately, a number of Democratic senators have come out for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Last week, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called for a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, which the Obama administration would like to see expire. Conrad even suggested waiving pay-go rules (which apply to those cuts for the richest two percent) in order to extend the cuts without paying for them. Conrad quickly clarified that he wasn’t embracing the Republican approach, which is simply extending all of the tax cuts forever, calling that a “formula for the decline of the United States.” Today on CNBC, Conrad argued that now just isn’t the time to raise taxes on the wealthy: We’ve got to be very careful with the timing of what we do. There’s no question in my mind that taxes have to go up on the wealthiest among us. The question is when. I don’t think this is the moment. Watch it: Meanwhile, DailyKos diarist rojjj caught Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) touting the Bush tax cuts on local Connecticut news station WTIC-1080. Lieberman said that “in the long term,” it may be appropriate to raise taxes on the wealthy, but that it would be a “mistake” to raise taxes on the richest Americans “right now“: JOYCE: One of the things I’m hearing discussed I’m hearing this from time to time, and I do believe that head of the Fed Bernanke suggested that maybe the tax cuts be put in place the Bush tax cuts, should be kept for the next two years. Where are you on that, and what’s the talk? LIEBERMAN: I don’t know that he specifically said that, but he’s somebody to listen to [...] We got a long term debt problem as Bernanke said and we gotta begin to bring our government back into balance. Probably in the long term that gonna mean we’re gonna have some more people in higher income levels. But I think that right now, as we’re trying to come out of a bad economy, that would be a mistake. I don’t know if its two years, six months, whether it’s a year, to just hold over these tax cuts so theres more money in the hands of these busineses, small businesses which create most of the jobs, a lot of people are in those upper brackets running those small businesses let’s make sure the economy’s stronger before we start raising taxes again. Listen to it: As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes, “A two year extension of the cuts for the rich would cost about $75 billion, with little in terms of economic activity to show for it.” Senators who feign concern for fiscal responsibility, as both Conrad and Lieberman do, should take note of this budget-busting effect of extending the tax cuts.