From Bloomberg:
Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, said he is “not very” optimistic that the Bush-era tax cuts will be extended at this point.
Durbin said a preliminary discussion yesterday between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber’s top Republican, “did not go well.” …
We’ll have to see how this plays out – refusal to extend the tax cuts will be an economic disaster for the United States. It would ensure that American business remains gun shy about expansion as well as eating up a great of American wealth and shoving it in to the black hole of government spending.
On the political side, Democrats’ refusal to extend will be a boon to the Republican party – come January, the new GOP House can send up a tax cut bill once a week and allow Democrats to either kill it, or agree to a popular, GOP proposal.
