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The debate on whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended for the wealthy pits the interests of the rich against the need to bring down the over $1 trillion 2010 deficit of the U.S. Government. The inconsistency in the position is transparent in Sen. Jim DeMint’s call for smaller deficits and for a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for all earners. Deciding whether the rich should get a tax cut presupposes tax cuts for other earners, and thus does not question whether there should be any extention. Fareed Zakaria argues that “no matter how many programs you cut, you will need more tax revenue.”  Debating about who should contribute less tax revenue implicitly rejects the “more tax revenue” point. Taking it for granted that the Bush tax cuts will be extended regardless, Zakaria suggests that certain deductions could be ended. The deduction for interest on mortgages, for example, costs the U.S. Government $130 billion a year (while the tax cuts for the rich costs $700 billion). The interest deduction, Zakaria maintains, does not make sense in the context of the spurious sub-prime mortgages in which people were put in houses they could not afford. The deduction “encourages people to take on too much debt, inflates the housing market and has no real effect on homeownership.” In 1986, I watched in the Senate gallery as that august body unraveled its attempt to eliminate that deduction in the face of industry opposition.  The vested interests of the status quo had spoken and the senators fell like dominoes.  Given the power of business in Congress, it is unlikely that many significant deductions will be challenged.  So the debate is on how many people should get a tax cut rather than on how much the rates must increase for the U.S. Government to reduce (not even eliminate!) its deficit—to say nothing of reducing the debt from prior years. The debate, in other words, can not get beyond its own presuppositions, and the small rule. The debate on whether the Bush tax cuts should be extended for the wealthy pits the interests of the rich against the need to bring down the over $1 trillion 2010 deficit of the U.S. Government. The inconsistency in the position is transparent in Sen. Jim DeMint’s call for smaller deficits and for a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for all earners. Deciding whether the rich should get a tax cut presupposes tax cuts for other earners, and thus does not question whether there should be any extention. Fareed Zakaria argues that “no matter how many programs you cut, you will need more tax revenue.”  Debating about who should contribute less tax revenue implicitly rejects the “more tax revenue” point. Taking it for granted that the Bush tax cuts will be extended regardless, Zakaria suggests that certain deductions could be ended. The deduction for interest on mortgages, for example, costs the U.S. Government $130 billion a year (while the tax cuts for the rich costs $700 billion). The interest deduction, Zakaria maintains, does not make sense in the context of the spurious sub-prime mortgages in which people were put in houses they could not afford. The deduction “encourages people to take on too much debt, inflates the housing market and has no real effect on homeownership.” In 1986, I watched in the Senate gallery as that august body unraveled its attempt to eliminate that deduction in the face of industry opposition.  The vested interests of the status quo had spoken and the senators fell like dominoes.  Given the power of business in Congress, it is unlikely that many significant deductions will be challenged.  So the debate is on how many people should get a tax cut rather than on how much the rates must increase for the U.S. Government to reduce (not even eliminate!) its deficit—to say nothing of reducing the debt from prior years. The debate, in other words, can not get beyond its own presuppositions, and the small rule.