How immensely important the Bush tax rates have suddenly become for the middle class?

And after years of being told by the very same people that they were “only for the rich.”

Amazing. The Democrats are accusing the Republicans of supporting huge tax increases. In fact, these increases next year are the result of Democrats insisting–at least twice in the legislative process–on “sunset” provisions for all the tax cuts. Many attempts were made by Republicans to make the rates permanent (income taxes, capital gains, death taxes). Democrats stomped these attempts.

Now the Democrats are holding a gun to the dog’s head, a gun they created, and are now blaming the Republicans for wanting to see the dog shot.

In fact, Democratic leaders now believe that they can go over the cliff, then restore Bush’s tax rates for everyone except the rich, and that they can then call the restored Bush rates the “Obama Tax Cuts.” Seriously.

Good thing for the Democrats that there’s a lot of uninformed voters out there. They’ll probably get away with it.