Tax Cut Extension: The GOP’s Fiscal Time Bomb - The Daily Beast

Tax Cut Extension: The GOP’s Fiscal Time Bomb - The Daily Beast: "“We knew that, politically, once you get it into law, it becomes almost impossible to remove it,” says Dan Bartlett, Bush’s former communications director. “That’s not a bad legacy. The fact that we were able to lay the trap does feel pretty good, to tell you the truth.”
As the vote approached in the summer of 2001, the Senate had just flipped to Democratic control when Jim Jeffords defected from the GOP. Had the tax breaks been made permanent—or even extended beyond Sept. 30, 2011—the fledgling Bush administration would have had to muster a 60-vote Senate majority under the so-called Byrd Rule, named for master parliamentarian Robert Byrd. (The final version, cutting taxes by $1.35 trillion, garnered 58 votes.) And by moving up the expiration date by nine months, the Bush team saved $100 billion and made the bill’s deficit-busting impact appear smaller."