Story here. Republicans get continued lower across-the-board tax rates, including rates to those who create jobs, and Democrats get their welfare packages, which create dependent Democratic voters. Yes, welfare. This stopped being "unemployment benefits" a long time ago, and the funds paid into these insurance programs ran out a long time ago too.

The tax rates are staying the same, so it's not much of a fiscal stimulus, but it's better than the damage the Democrats wanted.

Estate tax deal is better than it could have been, but the "death tax" has long outlived its usefulness. Democrats, who believe a wealthy country will result once you've destroyed all the wealthy people, are still miffed.

A temporary payroll tax cut is a good idea, and I was one of those who thought it would have been a better idea at the start of the recession than political pork "stimulus" packages.

I want everybody to look at this:

^The deal has been in the works for more than a week and represents a concession by Obama to political reality: Democrats don't have the votes in Congress to extend only the expiring tax breaks that benefit the middle class. The White House estimates that the proposed agreement would prevent typical families from facing annual tax increases of about $3,000, starting Jan. 1. ^

What was that? A typical middle-class family would pay $3,000 a month more if the Bush tax cuts expired? Why, that would mean that the Bush tax cuts saved a typical family...let's see...oh, yeah. $3,000 a year. Doesn't that make this a middle-class tax cut?

Oh, how the Democrats lied about this for years! You realize that if what they had said was actually true, that the Bush tax cuts were "tax cuts for the rich," Obama could have just let them expire without touching his beloved "middle class" at all. But it wasn't true, which is why the Democrats were stuck.