NYT - "Deal in Congress to Keep Tax Cuts, Widening Deficit"

Why is it that all our politicians assume that the majority of Americans wants to send our nation disastrously into debt in order to preserve Bush's ridiculous tax cuts? Isn't there just an off chance that a very large number of Americans would find it a sane position to oppose extending these cuts when we have no plan to pay for them; that it would be a breath of fresh air in an administration gone awry?

Putting aside efforts to control the federal deficit before the elections, Republican and Democratic leaders agreed Wednesday to extend $145 billion worth of tax cuts sought by President Bush without trying to pay for them.

At a House-Senate conference committee, Democratic lawmakers abandoned efforts to pay for the measures by either imposing a surcharge on wealthy families or closing corporate tax shelters.

'I wish we could pay for them, but this is a political problem and we have people up for re-election,'' said Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.

What cowards. I'm even more ashamed of the Democrats than I am outraged at the Republicans. That such an absurd tax cut could be a "bipartisan" effort is sickening.