We currently have an $8.5 TRILLION national debt, costing taxpayers over $400 BILLION in interest alone this year.
In 2000, for the first time in years, there was an effort to start paying down that debt (under $7 trillion at the time) which many economist believed at the time, and still believe, is more important to long term fiscal stability than making the tax cuts permanent.
We are currently giving more money to Japan, China and OPEC in interest payments than we are our to our own citizens through the Bush tax cuts.
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why do we need to raise taxes? why not just spend less?
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Its a matter of priorites. I think we need to deal with this....:
...And IMO, the best way to do that is to roll back some of the Bush tax cuts to 2000 levels (the "rich" werent doing too badly back then) AND spend less.