A fresher for deficit hawks.

"The Bush tax cuts are really expensive. The tax cuts expire this year. If lawmakers renew all of them, they'd add $6 trillion to the deficit from 2012 to 2022."

If lawmakers let the cuts for the rich expire but maintain the breaks for the middle and working class -- which is what they're likely to do -- they've still stacked up $4.9 trillion in debt. If they drop everything except the patch protecting the middle class from the Alternative Minimum Tax , they've only added $1 trillion -- and cut $3.9 trillion from our expected debt. Much of the medium-term problem would vanish right there