Say what you will, but President Obama essentially locked in the Bush tax cuts. The reason is that the only way to get rid of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would be to let them expire, which would raise everybody's taxes. Obama would never in a million years raise everybody's taxes.
When it comes time for the Bush tax cuts to expire again in 2012, there will be yet another compromise to extend them once again for two years. Republicans in the House would never allow the cuts to expire for only the wealthy and Obama would never let any tax cuts for the middle class expire.
Democrats had a chance to block the deal that made the Bush tax cuts permanent and then blame the Republicans for the slight tax increase on the middle class. Instead Democrats rolled over and decided to allow the Republicans to win the debate and cave in to them.
You got to hand it to George W. Bush. He destroyed the country and then was allowed to ride off into the sunset while his Republican party came roaring back. Top that all off by making his tax cuts permanent and you have to say that Bush did pretty damn well for the Republican party. Far better than Obama is doing for the Democratic party.
It took Nixon to go to China and it took Obama to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.