Oh, for God’s sake, people: let the Bush tax cuts expire – were the Bush years really so good for most people? – and let’s grow up about cutting the deficit (to do that, you need more revenue). Were the Clinton/Gore years, despite those tax rates, really so terrible?
It’s that simple. Take the rest of the day off.* Tomorrow, we can cut the defense budget and make modest long-term actuarial entitlement adjustments that, over many decades, bend the cost curves in a prudent but acceptable way.
The truth is that the next couple of decades need to be more about public investment – infrastructure – and less about personal consumption. It will make our country stronger and more prosperous, our lives safer and more comfortable. And guess what funds infrastructure? Taxes.
*As the for the Republican threat not to raise the debt ceiling if billionaires are not spared the Clinton/Gore rates, this is a ridiculous bluff, as Keith Olbermann pointed out Monday night on Countdown. A default by the Untied States? Wealthy Republicans would lose trillions of dollars in the ensuing catastrophe. They will not allow Congress to decimate their fortunes.
