(WIBC.com file photo: Eric Berman)

The debate in Congress over the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts is spreading to Indiana's U.S. Senate race.

Democratic nominee Joe Donnelly called this week for a second one-year extension of the reductions. Republican opponent Richard Mourdock criticized that stance in an Indianapolis campaign stop.  He says a short-term extension will feed the uncertainty he argues is causing a sluggish economic recovery to falter.

Mourdock says a 10-year extension, the same as the original duration of the 2001 law, would make companies more likely to invest in their businesses. Mourdock and Donnelly both opposed the bill passed by the Senate this week to make the cuts permanent except for taxpayers making more than 250-thousand dollars a year.

The vote was mostly along party lines, with Indiana's two Republican senators voting no including Richard Lugar, whom Mourdock beat in the GOP primary.

The Indiana state treasurer argues the economy faces similar uncertainty because of the growing deficit and the government's failure to control it. He slams the Democratic Senate for a "failure of leadership" in not passing a full federal budget for three years, and says Donnelly, who serves in the House, should have been more vocal about it.

Mourdock says Congress needs to cut spending, and says he won't support increases in the debt ceiling unless they come with cuts attached. Donnelly responded with a statement accusing Mourdock of being willing to risk a default. Donnelly says last year's impasse over the debt limit created exactly the uncertainty Mourdock now criticizes.