Tax cuts in black and white

By: Carrie Budoff Brown and John Maggs
Politico.com
November 30, 2010

In the complex debate over the Bush-era tax cuts, both parties are guilty of shading the truth.

Republicans charge that Democrats oppose any tax cuts for the wealthy and would decimate the small-business sector — neither of which is entirely true.

To hear Democrats tell it, Republicans are pushing a budget-busting plan to extend the high-end tax cuts, but Democrats fail to acknowledge that their middle-class-only proposal would still cost trillions of dollars.

With Congress returning to Washington and hoping to negotiate a resolution before the end of the year, here is POLITICO’s fact check on the debate.

“At a time when we are going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.”

(More here.)