According to Larry Summers if we don't preserve the current tax rates, we run the risk of a double-dip recession. Even if we technically are no longer in recession, I can guarantee that to millions of American, including me, times continue to be bad and in some respects worsening. The flip side is that if we continue them, we will add somewhere between 700 and 900 billion to the debt according to our government.

Many thinking people wonder how this could  add to our deficit. After all, tax receipts would not really decrease. The government was assuming an increase in tax receipts with no plan to decrease spending. In fact, they were likely planning for spending to increase by that same 700 to 900 billion (at a minimum). Tax cuts and spending increases basically got us here and only spending cuts coupled with tax cuts will get us out of this. But they will have to be drastic, painful cuts. Cuts that quite likely all of us will see and feel. Or we can just stumble along a little longer, the precipice fast approaching.