Since 2001, President Bush has signed into law a series of tax cuts, including lower tax rates on income, capital gains and dividends. Unless lawmakers choose to extend them, the tax breaks will expire after 2010. The president is likely to call once more on Congress to make his tax cuts permanent.

But he's not likely to push as hard to extend income tax breaks for high earners since that's "in play as a give-up for Republicans" in budget negotiations with Democrats, said William Beach, director of data analysis at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Critics say making the tax cuts permanent will only add to budget woes as policy-makers wrestle to get control of an expected surge in costs from Medicare, Social Security and possible reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Bottom line: President Bush may have a harder time convincing Congress to preserve breaks for upper-income households than he will for middle and lower income taxpayers. That's because some of his tax cuts - such as the higher child tax credit, the creation of the 10% tax bracket and increased marriage penalty relief draw bipartisan support.