Voting mostly along party lines, the House narrowly passed a $56 billion, five-year package of tax cuts that retains reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends in 2009 and 2010. The vote was 234-197.
Republicans said their record of tax cutting revitalized a sluggish economy, and the White House praised the bill. "These extensions are necessary to provide certainty for investors and businesses and are essential to sustaining long-term economic growth," the president's budget office said in a statement.
Democrats said tax cuts for investment income, and much of the GOP's economic agenda, help Republican friends and ignore average workers.
"Everybody loses under this bill. Everybody, that is, except the top one-fifth of 1 percent," said Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia. "Some might call them the superrich. Apparently, the majority calls them donors."
HOW can they justify this, the deficit being what it is? What about our children and grandchildren? What about the national debt? What happens when China decides to cash in its U.S. Treasury bonds? It makes me think that the Republicans actually WANT to destroy the country.
UPDATE: Here's a comment I found on AMERICAblog about the tax cuts:
This is another brilliant step forward in the Republicans 30 year strategy to bankrupt government. Soon there will be no money left for anything except the military and corporate assistance.Should the Democrats somehow manage to beat the voting machines and get back into power, they will be forced to raise taxes, mostly to pay interest on the neverending debt. Higher taxes without benefits -- the Dems are screwed! Kudos to Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove. They are truly jeenyuses.
Sickening, isn't it? And undoubtedly true.
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