As we're all aware, TARP -- the bailout signed by President Bush -- is one of the primary targets of tea party Republican screeching. They also bitch about the stimulus, but I think many of them tend to confuse the stimulus for the bailout and vice-versa. Anyway, Krugman's column today is especially pointed. In it, he emphasizes the very real notion that renewing the Bush tax cuts would be a massive "giveaway" to the very wealthy. What I've been calling a "bailout" for the super rich.
In fact, renewing the Bush tax cuts would mean a $3 million giveaway to each of the riches 120,000 people in the nation. Wealth being redistributed to the wealthy.
Meanwhile, the Republicans continue to deceive the public by spinning the expiration of the tax cuts as a Democratic tax hike. Krugman reminds us about specifically who set the 2011 expiration date:
Why the cutoff date? In part, it was used to disguise the fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts: lopping off that last year reduced the headline cost of the cuts, because such costs are normally calculated over a 10-year period. It also allowed the Bush administration to pass the tax cuts using reconciliation — yes, the same procedure that Republicans denounced when it was used to enact health reform — while sidestepping rules designed to prevent the use of that procedure to increase long-run budget deficits.
The Republicans set these tax cuts to expire. Not the Democrats. But now the Republicans and the tea party (with its billionaire donors) are twisting reality in order to get another bailout for the very rich -- on the backs of middle class Americans who are being tricked into voting for these bastards.