Has the sweltering DC heat gotten to Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND)? I'm searching for an explanation for his recent statement that the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of U.S. households be extended at a cost of about $150 billion (and be offset in subsequent years*).

(Reuters) - A fiscally conservative Democrat who chairs the U.S. Senate's budget committee on Wednesday said he supports extending all of the tax cuts that expire this year, including for the wealthy.

"The general rule of thumb would be you'd not want to do tax changes, tax increases ... until the recovery is on more solid ground," Senator Kent Conrad said in an interview with reporters outside the Senate chambers, adding he did not believe the recovery has come yet.

[...]

But the North Dakota Democrat who also is on the Senate Finance Committee, said he thinks waiving so-called pay-go rules to extend the upper income rates should be considered.

"Pay-go is not just a line in the sand," he said. "There is a reason that you have a pay-go waiver, which requires 60 votes."

It's an odd statement coming from author of the a budget resolution that "provides net tax relief of $780 billion over the five years of the plan, targeted largely on the middle-class. It reflects the permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003 income tax provisions for couples with incomes below $250,000 and singles with income below $200,000." Conrad says the European debt crisis put persuaded him that a larger deficit in the coming years is called for. Unfortunately, Conrad will be shooting blanks with this scheme.

I'm sympathetic to using the federal budget to stimulate the economy, but cutting taxes for the rich would simply not be effective at achieving that goal. According to the Congressional Budget Office:

The size of those effects would depend largely on which households got the money. Policies that temporarily increased the after-tax income of people who are relatively well off would probably have little effect on their spending because they generally would be able finance their consumption out of their income or assets without such a change.

Rather than hand out hundreds of billions of dollars to rich folks who won't spend it and certainly don't need it, why not cover the $260 billion shortfall in state budgets and prevent teacher, police, and fire fighter layoffs? I hear there's a lot of unemployed people that could use some extra cash to pay their mortgages and grocery and doctor bills.

*This is the kind of budget trickery B.S. that really chaps my hide. In 2012 when it's time to pay for these tax cuts to the rich, everyone is going to wail and gnash their teeth and moan about how awful the deficit it is and its resulting debt will crush the souls of our children and grandchildren and that something must absolutely be done, so we end up with even a nominally progressive president and Congress standing at the ready to cut programs for the not-rich and slash the budgets of our public protection institutions. Heckuva job, Senator.

Photo courtesy of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration