People who support continuing the Bush tax cuts on taxable income beyond $250,000 usually give two basic reasons.:

First, they say the tax cuts on the wealthy help in job creation. And second, because of this alleged positive effect on jobs, they say the economy grows and the deficit shrinks.

But let’s take a look at the record, which speaks very clearly for itself.

Except for the Hoover presidency, which covers 1929 to 1933, the George W. Bush presidency had the worst record of job creation since 1921, the earliest year shown by the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. So almost 10 years of Bush tax cuts have coincided with an unprecedentedly abysmal record of job creation. How about the deficit? Can we see positive effects there? Just the opposite. Bush was inaugurated in January 2001. On Sept. 30, 2001, the final year of the Clinton presidency budgets, the national debt was $5.8 trillion. On Sept. 30, 2009, the final year of the Bush budgets, the national debt was $11.9 trillion. The debt more than doubled during the Bush presidency.

This increase was not despite the tax cuts; according to analysis based on the Congressional Budget office figures, the Bush tax cuts are the single largest cause of the Bush presidency deficit; the Iraq war is second.

Extending tax breaks on taxable income exceeding $250,000 during a time when social security recipients are asked to economize, civil servants are told to step up, and the unemployed face cessation of their benefits is not only unconscionable, it is totally unjustified by the economic facts of the last 10 years.