End of the Session and Tax Cuts.

    With Congress nearing the end of its session, there has been a whole slew of legislative activity taking place which is great.  After a period of harping by the Republicans that acting during the lame duck session was somehow immoral, Congress managed to act during the lame duck session.  Now, there are some legitimate arguments to be made about how Congress should not do anything while waiting for a new Congress, namely that it might enact legislation that is counter to what the voters want as indicated by the recent batch of representatives elected.  Congress managed to pass a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; an extension of tax cuts for the Middle Class and an extension of unemployment benefits; food safety regulations, and other such policies that were favored by Democrats with a few left out.
    I want to point out that the tax deal is not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.  First, there was no way to get the middle class tax cuts without giving the upper class tax cuts as well.  Democrats in the Senate were not going to use reconciliation to pass that bill, too many moderate senators happen to like wealthy people more than the rest of society.  Furthermore, I think everything that can be done, should be done with regards to demonstrating that no one cares about the deficit.  I'm just disappointed that the media keeps calling people in Washington fiscally conservative, because no one is.  They love spending money on things, they only care about the deficit when that money goes to groups that aren't their own constituents or don't support them.  In addition, how pissed off would the country be if taxes went up for everyone AND unemployment benefits weren't extended?  I maintain that there was no realistic way to get the middle class cuts extended and get unemployment benefits done at this point, and maybe not even earlier for that matter.  In an ideal world, Obama and Congressional Democrats would have passed the Obama tax cuts which affected only those making under 250,000 while letting the Bush tax cuts elapse because the people who passed them were shortsighted.  They could do this with only 50 votes, Biden could provide the tie breaker.  Some might blame this not happening on Obama, I squarely place the blame on the fact that there are a number of conservative Democrats who enjoy posturing about the subject and who frankly are more supportive of he affluent.