You Tell Me: Priorities

Yesterday I wrote about this thing. Republicans, you may recall, refused to vote for a tax cut (with the added bonus of a paperwork reduction) for small business, on the grounds that the Tax Cut HAD TO BE PAID FOR with a corresponding spending cut. It's my opinion that the spending cut is a red herring. After all, the lame duck session is all about one issue - extension of the Bush Tax Cuts. And at least in the case of the the ones for those high-bracket earners, the rhetoric has been that there's no need to designate spending cuts because the economy will be stimulated by all the hiring and investing that the rich will do, because they're not paying taxes.

And in fact, this bill probably failed because of this pledge that Republicans signed, to refuse to vote for cloture on anything until the tax cuts are extended. All of them.

So my question, and I'm completely sincere about this - is it fair to say that Republicans value tax cuts for the rich more than they value tax cuts for small business, based on this choice? If it isn't fair to say, why isn't it?