Who Should Pay the Bill?

I've added a link to The Campaign for America's Future over in the right hand column. I like those folks because they have strategy in addition to rants. You come here for a good rant now and then but then what? To get things done you have to actually get some things done. Getting things done is all about having an effective strategy. My president and yours needs a strategy transplant. He just threw out the first figure in a negotiation and defined the left hand pole from which negotiations will start. Why does he continue to be incredibly thoughtful and rational when dealing with a bunch of crazy ideologists?

Is Obama capable of getting the message that if you want a piece of the earth you have to pound the table and demand the sun, the moon, and the stars?

What President Obama has presented is a very fair middle ground, center right, budget proposal that keeps intact America's promise to its people. He won't get it because he doesn't get it.

Remember that while Republicans are screaming about cutting the deficit they created, over 67% of Americans don't think the deficit is out first priority...

"It's the economy, stoopid!"

Richard Escow tells us how Obama should have gone about this and what we have to do now.

Where's the extreme position from which the Democrats can be "bargained down" so that they, too, can only get 20% more than they asked for when the negotiations began? If they're not going to do it, we have to do it for them.

Here's a start: First increase Social Security retirement benefits by 15%, across the board, by lifting the payroll tax cap and imposing a financial transactions tax. Second, increase income taxes on a sliding scale that goes up to 60% for the highest earners in the country. (It's been as high as 90% during periods of our greatest prosperity.) Third, add $500 billion to our stimulus spending over the next two years, and keep adding it until unemployment is down to 4%. Fourth, immediately add a public option, "Medicare For All" plan that's voluntarily available to Americans of all age brackets.

Odd that Eskow's version of the "extreme position" from which bargaining should start sounds like a pretty good end point to me. The big thing here is to justify taxing high levels of income at a progressively higher rate. That's easy. The middle class didn't cause our deficits it was corporations and rich people. They need to pay the bill.

Cheers,

Steve