GREGORY: You’re not being responsive to a specific point which is how can you be for cutting the deficit and also cutting taxes as well when they’re not paid for?

BOEHNER: Listen, you can’t raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy. […]

GREGORY: But tax cuts are not paid for is that correct?

BOEHNER: I am not for raising taxes on the American people in a soft economy.

GREGORY: That’s not the question. Are tax cuts paid for or not?

BOEHNER: Listen, what you’re trying to do is get into this Washington game and their funny accounting over there. …

GREGORY: Do you believe tax cuts pay for themselves or not?

BOEHNER: I do believe that we’ve got to get more money in the hands of small businesses.

Later in the program, Pence ran into the same trouble:

GREGORY: This tension that I got out with Leader Boehner. Republicans want more tax cuts seems to me he acknowledged that they’re not paid for and yet at the same time they want tax cuts but they’re so worried about the deficit. How do you resolve that tension?

PENCE: Well I think the way you resolve it is you focus on jobs. …

GREGORY: But congressman, you’re asking Americans to believe that Republicans will have spending discipline when you’re saying extend the tax cuts that aren’t paid for and cut the deficit, how is that a consistent credible message?

PENCE: Well I understand the credibility problem. …

GREGORY: You acknowledge, tax cuts being extended cannot be paid for, it would be borrowed money.

PENCE: Well no I don’t acknowledge that. … I think it’s apples to oranges.

More than half of the total benefit from the Bush tax cuts this year alone will accrue solely to the richest 5 percent of Americans while the middle 20 percent of Americans will reap only 7 percent of the benefit.

All of these tax cuts were passed with a “sunset” provision that will cause them to expire at the end of 2010. Virtually everyone in Congress agrees with the Obama administration that we should make permanent all of the reduced taxes for those who make less than $250,000—that’s 98 percent of Americans. The disagreement is limited to those cuts that affect the richest 2 percent of Americans—with conservatives demanding that the wealthiest Americans continue to benefit from the Bush administration’s largess.

The cost of those tax cuts is going to go straight onto our national credit card unless we raise taxes from everyone else to pay for the $690 billion in tax breaks for the rich or we find $690 billion in spending cuts. And that means increased interest payments on the debt. When we add in the costs of additional debt service, the true price of maintaining the tax cuts for the wealthy jumps by almost $140 billion.** In total, keeping those cuts for the rich will cost almost $830 billion over the next 10 years.