Taxes and spending have become the source of an internal feud between the Democrats of Congress. David Sirota lists the sides of the issue in the left-leaning blog's recent article You Make the Call. It seems, in this case, the debating is within the party.
The Obama administration and fellow progressive Democrats still promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire but then reinvest some or all recovered tax money into domestic spending that would rebuild crumbling infrastructure and economically support those hit hardest by the recession. Other more conservative Democrats believe America's middle-class should have to pay higher taxes or suffer through slashed services and benefits in order to prevent today's wealthy from paying any more. Then there are the "Blue Dog" Democrats who are against unemployment benefits but still defend the Bush tax cuts and the so-called "Trickle-Down" Democrats whose priority is "to prevent millionaires from having to go back to paying Clinton-era tax rates." Then finally, the Military-Industrial Democrats, who are declaring that instead of reducing the Pentagon budget, middle-income families should be paying higher taxes or benefit slashes- this last group is hard to reckon with considering the Pentagon is at its highest funding level since World War II allowing for almost wasteful expenses.
The ultimate question is, which argument should prevail as economically accommodating? What progressive and conservative economists can agree on is that spending on programs like unemployment and food stamps are far better boost to the economy than extending tax cuts. Sirota expresses the discerning conclusions that raising taxes on the welathy and devoting those new resources to such programs would be a much better boost to the economy than simply extending tax cuts for the wealthy. Essentially it is clear, in my assesments of the provided government data, that taxes should not be raised for the middle-class, but for the upper.
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