Ryan Ellis makes the case that the tax extenders bill before Congress has much more in the way of solid pro-growth reform than of crony capitalism. His argument is directed at the conservative critics of the bill. He ignores the liberal ones, who are outraged that the bill does not also extend some expansions of the child tax credit and earned income credit that the Democrats enacted in 2009.

The liberal criticisms downplay the question of timing. The bill takes tax breaks that expired at the end of last year and extends them through this year. The child tax credit and earned income credit provisions don’t expire until the end of 2017. I think those provisions are good policy, so I’d just extend them now and avoid a fight where Republicans appear to be (and many may actually be) more concerned about the taxes businesses pay than the ones low-income people do. But it’s perfectly reasonable for congressmen to conclude that there’s no need to take up those issues now. They can do it in next year’s extenders bill, or the one after that, or in a bigger tax reform under a new president in 2017.