Politicians in Washington and citizens around the country are breathing a sigh of relief today as word of a compromise between the President and the GOP has been reached regarding an across-the-board extension of the Bush era tax cuts for Americans at every income level. Republicans demanded an extension of tax cuts for even the wealthiest Americans as the price for capitulating to an extension of unemployment benefits and a roll-back of payroll taxes for one year.
Compromise is a necessary component of our country's government structure, but the "deal" reached yesterday does not begin to address our burgeoning federal deficit or the unstable state of our social security system. In fact, the cost of the tax cut for high earners alone will cost the government several hundred billion dollars, which will simply be added to the federal debt.
The GOP has revealed that all their pre-election talk about fiscal responsibility was just a puff of smoke and attested to their own hypocrisy by abandoning that notion in favor of refusing to ask their own constituency (big business & the wealthy) to make sacrifices necessary to bring this country back to a level of economic stability. Middle class taxpayers are hurting, but the GOP held relief for wage-earners hostage to their demand to further enrich the wealthy. In the process, another opportunity to address this nation's economic woes has been lost.
At the end of the day, no American was asked to sacrifice, and our leaders chose to bury their heads in the sand for two more years. When will we ever learn?
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