Unemployment, Tax Cuts, and Deficit Peacocks (posted by DT)

This week we're getting a wonderful window into the priorities of liberals and conservatives. We have virtually every Republican in congress opposed to the extension of unemployment insurance, ostensibly because they don't want to further increase the deficit. Why do I write "ostensibly"?

Well every last one of those same Republicans is in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans. This would make the deficit much worse, costing many times what unemployment extension (which is temporary, while tax cuts are permanent) would cost. They apparently see no contradiction here.

Someone in the Blogosphere coined a perfect term for such conservatives: Deficit Peacocks. They talk about the horrible deficit that is passing costs onto our grandchildren, but they are completely unserious about actually solving the problem in the long term.

The current Republican party is genuinely in favor of lower taxes- that's not fake. But you can't seriously propose lowering the deficit and cutting taxes. This just isn't that hard to figure out.

One other thing. If you believe in the claptrap that lower tax rates actually lead to increased revenue through massive economic growth, this post: http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/07/13/ezra-klein-is-dismayed-that-some-people-think-the-bush-tax-cuts-raised-revenue/ pretty much demolishes that argument. You can't get something for nothing, nice as that would be.