Oooh, nuance!

They've returned to their tax-and-spend ways!!!!!!! ZOMG TEH FREE MARKET!!1111!!

The Senate on Thursday rejected the idea of renewing many of President Bush's tax cuts as all three major presidential candidates interrupted their campaigns to cast their votes. The House approved a budget blueprint that would raise taxes by $683 billion over the next five years.

The Senate did embrace Bush reductions aimed at low-income workers, married couples and people with children.

The House budget plan would provide generous increases to domestic federal programs but still is designed to bring the government's budget back into the black by letting all of Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. That plan passed the House on a 212-207 vote with Republicans unanimously opposing it.

The Senate voted 99-1 to extend the cuts for some workers as well as couples and parents. Senators voted 52-47 to reject a move to extend tax cuts for middle- and higher-income taxpayers, investors and people inheriting businesses and big estates.

The votes were mostly symbolic, but they put senators in both parties on the record for when the tax cuts actually expire in three years.

Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain, Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, voted for the full roster of Bush tax cuts. Rivals Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., both voted against them.

The Republic worship of the failed Bush tax cuts is not just lock-step ideological, but also selfish. Most of them are multimillionaires and don't want to give up that sweet, sweet extra cash.

Notice that, despite the bloviatings of the free-market pseudo-intellectuals, it is really not that hard to understand economics if you want to. For example, no other president, besides our oh-so-beloved Deciderer, has cut taxes in a time of war, because war means unprecedented amounts of expenditures on weaponry, active duty troops, and in this day and age, overpriced mercenaries and other "support services" for our men and women in arms. The total cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations is now projected to be $3 trillion. [Must...not...yell...AAAAACK!...]

So here we have the U.S. suddenly incurring large expenditures, while at the same time DECREASING REVENUES by drastically cutting taxes on the wealthy. A seven-year-old child could have told Bush that this was a very bad idea, bound to destroy the Clintonian surplus (which he had hoped would be a slush fund for emergencies) and create a massive deficit. We have been forced to borrow from the country that attacked us on 9/11, Saudi Arabia, to try and infuse cash into our empty coffers, as well as China, the country that sells us poisoned toys and toothpaste. Yes, we are now heavily indebted to countries that have either actively or passively been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans. And they say the economy has nothing to do with national security!

I'll leave all the Ponzi scheme speculation of the super-deregulated banking and mortgage industries for folks like Atrios and Paul Krugman. My point here is that I'd rather be a tax-and-spend Democrat, than a borrow-and-spend Republic. The government has to spend money no matter what we do. Why not make it pay-as-you go?

It's the economy, stupid. And as usual, John "McCaca" McCain and the Republics are on the "stupid" side.