Anyone want to put odds on the Bush tax cuts being made permanent in 2013?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the odds are 1,000,000,000:1 in favor of permanence.

and come 2013 all of the rates will be the same as they are today. If the Rs take the Senate and the Presidency, they will definitely become permanent.

he can't run for President again.

Given that, he can let them all expire, and then the middle class tax cuts AND the tax cuts on the rich will expire.

And the anti-Obama wing of DU will scream bloody murder, because he will have broken his promise to not raise the taxes of the 95% of Americans making less than 250k.

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So they will expire, no matter what the outcome of the 2012 elections are.

Even if Obama is not re-elected, the Bush tax cuts will expire without a vote being taken in the Senate because Reid is the Senate leader that brings bills to the floor of the Senate, and he will never bring that bill to renew the Bush tax cuts to the floor of the Senate.

The Bush tax cuts will expire in November of 2012.
Without Reid ever having to lift a finger to stop them.

This is why President Obama agreed to the one-time extension of those Bush tax cuts for 2 years. They will not be an issue in next year's election.
President Obama took that weapon out of their hands for next year's elections.
The tax cuts will expire, they will whimper before they die, whether the Democrats win a majority of the elections in 2012 or not.
Because they are scheduled to expire before the next Congress is sworn into office.

The Tea Party lost that argument, big-time.
Ryan looks like an idiot now.
Cantor looks like a moron now.
Boehner always did look like a moron, so whining about it won't do him any good now.

The Rs WILL make this part of the 2012 campaign, in a big way.

They will be screaming about how the Ds are going to be raising taxes, and the Ds are going to have to stand tall and push back.

I am no BO hater, I back him up most things.

But, the taxes issue is FAR from a sure deal ...

And that's all there is to it.
Any Republican screaming for Bush's tax cuts to be extended beyond 2012 will be yelling into a barrel.

Just that simple.

We're talking about beating a dead horse!
It's dead, dead on arrival in the Senate, the one controlled by the Democrats until January 2013.

It's not that hard to understand, not really.

You REALLY think the republicans make good on ANY promises to the Ds on ANYTHING, much less THE very foundation of their existence?

and the future is so uncertain. I'd like reality to take hold, but the crazies have been keeping it at bay for quite a while now with their madness....

There may be one chance in a hundred that they will be extended for two more years, aned then only if unemployment remains near or above 9%.

At that point, it will be tough to renege on an explicit promise. Wouldn't be the first time though, so we'll see.

The projections for deficit reduction are premised on the cuts expiring, and I believe that Obama will allow them to expire. My bigger worry is that there will be tax reform that lowers the upper bracket permanently.