AMTbuff, I disagree. Under current law, the tax cuts expire, which means it takes an act of Congress to extend them. They expire, in part, because back in 2001 many legislators thought they were unaffordable, and we were looking at massive projected surpluses then. (I know, it was a parliamentary maneuver, but it wouldn't have worked if a significant minority in the Senate weren't concerned about cost.) Now we're looking a huge and growing deficits. The presumption really should be that all of the tax cuts expire. Then we can decide which ones, if any, are worth borrowing money to finance. In a much more rational world, I think the answer would be, not many. There's also a question, which EconomistMom articulated well: Why should Obama be spending scarce budgetary resources extending Bush's tax cuts?