Let The Bush Tax Cuts Expire

Let the Bush tax cuts expire. They aren't worth saving. And it's way to send an important signal that tax cut policy by intimidation won't work:

The Obama administration’s hopes of reaching a tax deal with Republicans that would decouple rates on the rich from the middle class appear dead.

House GOP Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) threw cold water on the proposed plan, which would temporarily extend tax cuts for the wealthy while permanently extending tax cuts for the middle class. “Taxes shouldn't be going up on anybody right now,” Cantor said.

Cantor’s comments Monday evening on Fox News follow similar remarks from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the incoming senior Republican on the Senate’s tax-writing committee. While Hatch expressed an open mind to extending tax cuts past the 2012 election rather than permanently extending the rates, he also ruled out the decoupling proposal.

Hatch said he would be open to a compromise with the White House that would extend all of the Bush tax rates for at least two years.

Republicans do not want to separate the timelines for extending the rates because doing so would make it easier in the future to let tax breaks on upper-income people expire. Cantor on Monday also said the decoupling proposal would send a signal to small businesses that their taxes will rise, which he said would hurt the economy.