They’re getting closer. Sort of.
Earlier this evening, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer rolled out a new way of talking about the fight over the Bush tax cuts. Democrats, he said, are committed “to absolutely ensure that Republican phasing out of the middle-class tax cuts will not happen.”
“That’s what they adopted at the beginning of the Bush administration — that they would phase it out, and it would end,” Hoyer said.
He’s right.
The only reason Congress is debating income tax cuts (for the rich or anybody else) is that President Bush and Republicans in Congress scheduled their 2001 tax cuts to expire at the end of 2010. They were constrained by the budget rules, and by sticker shock, from making the tax cuts permanent, and now they’re about to sunset.
So Hoyer and the Dems are right to hand Republicans ownership of the fact that the tax cuts are expiring. But they may have to polish up the rhetoric a bit.
