We're only months away from sequestration, but as the chart below illustrates, the plans proposed by the two parties to avoid it aren't even remotely similar.
via the CAP
A new Senate GOP tax plan released by McConnell and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R), however, raises taxes on nearly 10 times as many Americans by allowing certain tax breaks signed into law by President Obama expire at the end of the year. Putting an end to those three tax breaks — the Child Tax Credit, a tax break on college tuition, and a more generous Earned Income Tax Credit — would raise taxes on 20 million families, as shown by this chart from Seth Hanlon, the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress.
Not surprisingly, the Republicans want to raise taxes on everyone but the rich, while the Democrats want to raise taxes only on the rich.
Meanwhile I still hold the firm belief that the Bush Tax Cuts will expire in their entirety at the end of the year if for no other reason than the impossibility of congress agreeing on anything else. And if congress simply does nothing, they will expire. Because John Boehner got "98 percent of what [he] wanted" in the Budget Control Act (the debt ceiling deal).
It may harm everyone in the short term, but it will be better for the nation in the long term.