TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The President comments on extending Bush tax cuts:

Now, I’m not a math teacher. (Laughter.)  But I know a little bit about math.  They’re proposing about $4 trillion worth of tax cuts.  About $700 billion of those tax cuts are for people who typically are millionaires and billionaires, and on average would get $100,000 in tax relief — $700 billion that we don’t have, we’d have to borrow in order to provide these tax cuts.  And 98 percent of Americans wouldn’t see any benefit from it.  
 
And keep in mind that because we don’t have it, it would actually end up costing more than $700 billion, because we’d end up having — since we’re borrowing it, we’d have to pay interest on it.

Well that just sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Republicans want to extend $3.8 trillion of tax cuts (over a ten-year period), $700 billion of which results from income over $250,000. We can’t afford it, etc.

Funny thing, though: the President has proposed extending Bush’s tax cuts for income levels below $250,000. Extending those tax cuts costs—you guessed it—$3.1 trillion. So, the President is chastising Republicans for supporting the extension of $700 billion of tax cuts, all the while supporting $3.1 trillion worth over the same period.

So I suppose, Mr. President, we “can’t afford” $700 billion of tax cuts, but we can $3.1 trillion?

I guess a little class warfare and hypocrisy is fair game when you’re trying to win an election.