The President Lives!

And he came out firing today, finally calling out Republicans for the absurdity of trying to tackle the deficit without raising taxes, at least on the wealthy.  While Obama had been preempted by a Boehner "tax hikes are off the table" assault on Tuesday, he nonetheless asked the million dollar question: who would you rather your tax dollars go to, the super-rich or the needy?

After all, the super rich are not reinvesting their tax dollars into the economy.  Does a tax cut for Bill Gates create more jobs at Microsoft?  Conversely, does raising taxes on Bill Gates damage Microsoft?  The answer to both questions is no.  Cutting into the deficit is going to require higher taxes (perhaps we should just call them normal taxes, since the current levels represent a tax cut).  Everyone, including Republicans, knows this.

Democrats, as the President pointed out in his speech, have already made concessions.  According to Representative Eric Cantor when he backed out of deficit talks last week the two sides had already agreed to trillions in spending cuts.  Presumably, that means that Democrats agreed to massive cuts since - were it up to Republicans - the government would only spend money on the Military, Congressional salaries and giving money to big corporations.

For there to be any agreement, higher taxes AND lower spending have to be on the table.  For their to be any REAL solution to the deficit problem, higher taxes and lower spending have to be on the table.  Forget the politics of it all, we just are not going to be able to eliminate the deficit by only one means.  There should be MORE spending cuts that tax hikes, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we can eliminate the deficit with only spending cuts...unless of course you are Paul Ryan or the Tea Party and you just think the government should stop spending money altogether and strip important benefits and programs from the people who need them most...then we could do with only spending cuts.

It is nice to see the President finally get involved.  As I said in my last post I believe he and John Boehner have some kind of bizarre rapport and will figure out how to make this work.  I actually think they like each other!  And I have to say, I'm even starting to warm up to Boehner a bit.  It is evident that he cares somewhat for the welfare of America and Americans and he is clearly smart enough to realize that the nation is headed for disaster if he lets those Tea Party folks run the show.

America needs strong leadership and I think Obama and Boehner can provide it.  But we also need the facts, and the fact is, we cannot solve our deficit problems with budget cuts alone unless we are willing to sacrifice programs that, frankly, we are not willing to sacrifice and rightfully so.  Higher taxes on the super rich will help, and any compromise is only that if BOTH sides are willing to give ground.  Otherwise, any agreement will just be people with no new ideas forcing people with few new ideas to accept unnecessary spending cuts.