Oddly worded, but still disturbing:
A fiscally conservative Democrat who chairs the U.S. Senate’s budget committee on Wednesday said he supports extending all of the tax cuts that expire this year, including for the wealthy.
“The general rule of thumb would be you’d not want to do tax changes, tax increases … until the recovery is on more solid ground,” Senator Kent Conrad said in an interview with reporters outside the Senate chambers, adding he did not believe the recovery has come yet.
Conrad’s comments are sympathetic with Republican arguments against raising taxes amid a fledgling economic recovery. They frame a debate gaining steam over whether stimulus to bolster the economy’s recovery, or deficit reduction, should be the top policy priority.
In Reuters’ telling, Conrad is on the side of stimulus because he’s willing to waive PAYGO rules to give yacht-owners money for gasoline. Conrad is always, always complaining about the budget deficit, but now that we have an opportunity to raise some significant revenues by letting the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich sunset, suddenly he wants to waive PAYGO. I was recently reminded that my mother reads this blog so consider a long string of expletives (concerning objects and insertion points) to have been deleted here.
Democratic Senator Evan Bayh also recently questioned whether taxes should be raised on the wealthy, citing the economy.
Sen. Bayh didn’t even show up this evening to extend unemployment benefits. How about this? Take the money from the wealthy and use it to stimulate the economy and create jobs for people who are unemployed?
