Mitch McConnell lies. dog bites man.

MCCONNELL: Everything that's happened in the last year-and-a-half has been to pump up the government. We borrowed stimulus money. We spent it to hire new federal government workers. We sent it down to states so they would not have to lay off state workers. You have to get the economy going.

This is a lie. He discusses two parts of the stimulus bill and definitely asserts that a third part didn't exist. About one third of the stimulus bill consisted of tax cuts.

It is a mistake to use certain words when attemptint to mislead: "everything","exactly", "identical" etc.

Steve Benen argues with McConnell's assertion that tax cuts during a recession are good and spending increases during a recession are bad. He's right, of course, but he is also falling into McConnell's trap.

Rather the Democrats should agree that there should be temporary tax cuts in addition to permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts on income under $250,000 and then argue over whose taxes should be temporarily cut. Only those of rich people or everyone's.

I think that Majority Whip James Cluburn has it right. He said there should be a temporary extension of the Obama tax cuts. A key advantage of that debate is that it would force Republicans to admit that there are Obama tax cuts which could be extended.