Hoyer: Middle-Class Tax Cuts Might Need to Go

George W. Bush bought himself a little goodwill by instating some strategic middle-class tax cuts while he was president, but those are about to expire, and according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, President Obama’s idea of extending those cuts may run up against some resistance — even from his own party.

AP via Google News:

In the near term, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer raised the possibility that Congress will only temporarily extend middle-class tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. He pointedly suggested that making them permanent would be too costly.

Tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, affecting taxpayers at every income level. President Barack Obama proposes to permanently extend them for individuals making less than $200,000 a year and families making less than $250,000 — at a cost of about $2.5 trillion over the next decade.

“As the House and Senate debate what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts in the coming weeks, we need to have a serious discussion about their implications for our fiscal outlook, including whether we can afford to permanently extend them before we have a real plan for long-term deficit reduction,” Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told a forum on deficit reduction.

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