An odd silence

Obama's so-called budget plan is a feeble effort to compete with the more radical Republican schemes (when they are honest enough to admit to what their supposed commitment to fiscal responsibility actually amounts to).

What seems clear to me is that last year Congress should have just sat on its hands and let the disastrous Bush tax cuts expire. Or Obama could have vetoed the restoration, and not just bleetingly talk about keeping the old taxes just for the superrich. Abolishing all the cuts would have meant a situation in which we all would suffer the pain--without unnecessary tinkering with Social Security.

Briefly, the columnist Paul Krugman, in one of his few sensible comments, advocated letting the Bush tax cuts simply expire. But he no longer talks of this. Why not?

And why doesn't anyone else in the punditosphere?