And I for one am happy Not to be one of them!

here's how Klein defined the proposal after he wrote that piece: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021945161

The proposal is absurd!

Isn't that what we hate about the liberal media, that they only talk to those legendary smart folks in Washington and have no clue WTF is going on in the other 99% of the country.

I would guess that Obama knows a bit more about what is going on than Ezra Effing Klein.

"some people say".

Last edited Sun Dec 9, 2012, 12:05 PM - Edit history (1)

If President Obama is considering backing down from the promises that he made to the people that voted for him, the President is making an enormous mistake that will hurt the democratic party for decades.

What needs to happen are the following:

The maximum rate on high wage earners must go back to the Clinton income tax rates.
The Medicare Tax Cap must be eliminated so that high earners pay across the entire calendar year, like all low wage earners.
The Capital Gains tax rate must be raised to 20% from 15%.

If the first two of those can't be gained, going off the Fiscal Cliff is the only option left.

On edit, I said Ezra Klein led Chris Hayes show, the person that led the show was Steve Kanacki.

To justify their support of raising the eligibility age and lowering the cost of living increases for future generations. The Washington post has had many articles over the past few years championing cuts to ss and Medicare. Every time the Post prints such an article it takes a few days or weeks for folks like Robert Riech, Krugman, Dean and others to put out articles pointing out the falsehoods and problems with the Washington Posts way bullshit.

they had an unethical arrangement where they would publish Pete Peterson propaganda disguised as news stories.

And guess what, Ezra Klein was there to tell liberals not to worry about Peterson:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/pete_peterson_speaks.html

Pete Peterson speaks

Benjy Sarlin has a good interview with Peter G. Peterson, the deficit-hating billionaire who many liberals see as one of the primary threats to Medicare and Social Security.

In the interview, Peterson comes off as more reasonable than all that: An all-purpose deficit hawk as opposed to a small-government conservative trying to achieve his ends by talking up the debt. Peterson would cut entitlements, to be sure, but he'd also take a carbon tax, more taxes on the rich, defense cuts and more. "I remind you that we have a case study in the 1990s, where taxes on people like me, my marginal taxes, were increased and combined with spending caps and 'pay as you go' rules, we had one of the great decades of our history and ended up with a budget surplus," he says. Fair enough.

One of Peterson's arguments to progressives has always been that you want to plan to deal with the deficit sooner rather than later, as the neediest constituencies are often the first to suffer when Congress has to find money quickly. The last few months have been proof of his point: Medicaid and food stamps and unemployment insurance are staggering while Congress debates whether they'll keep all of the Bush tax cuts or just most of them. That isn't to endorse any particular solutions to our fiscal woes, but there's no guarantee that emergency action will be more equitable than early action.

to any of his arguments, in themselves.