Even within The 1%, Warren Buffett -- perched atop The Pyramid -- summarizes our economic quandary with disarming candor: “There is class warfare, all right... but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
Warren Buffett calls for higher taxes on the wealthy. (Interview with Tom Brokaw)
The following excerpt is from Ezra Klein's Wonkbook:
Ross Douthat had an interesting article last week arguing that the White House has confused matters by refusing to do this thing called "negotiating" until the shutdown ends.
What could the president say instead? Well, he could say something like this: I join with Congressional Republicans in favoring further steps to reduce the budget deficit in advance of the debt ceiling vote. I have made an offer, embodied in my budget, to combine entitlement cuts with a tax reform that closes loopholes and deductions and uses the savings to reduce the deficit. I await a reasonable counteroffer from Speaker Boehner: I am open to many possible deals, but as I have said on many occasions, I will not let the Republicans balance the budget while exempting the wealthy from their fair share of the burden. My preference is always to compromise, but in the event that the Speaker cannot present a reasonable counteroffers, and continues to make unreasonable demands, I trust that the House will fulfill its duty and raise the debt ceiling cleanly, rather than throwing the American economy into a recession and threatening the full faith and credit of our republic.
Perhaps that's a better communications strategy. Perhaps not. But it does get to a fundamental truth here which is that the budget side of this showdown is really about the Republican Party's refusal to 1) strike a budget deal that includes higher taxes and 2) accept that if they won't agree to higher taxes there can't be a budget deal. If the GOP was open to higher taxes then the negotiations could've happened long ago and we'd already have had a grand bargain on the budget.
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Who are The 1%? And what have they done to snuff distributed prosperity?
See "Inside Job," an Oscar-winning documentary that can be freely streamed at https://vimeo.com/27292661
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"The Self-Destruction of The 1% "
(Lessons from 14th century Venice)
Bernie Sanders Wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders
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Republican presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan, the living American who has served longest as a White House senior staff adviser, observed: “The Republican philosophy might be summarized thus: To hell with principle; what matters is power, and that we have it, and that they do not.”
“Where the Right Went Wrong"
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"Jon Stewart Nails GOP Demands For Re-Opening Government"
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"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic
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"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"
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Diane Rehm's Brilliant Panel Discussion: "Possible Repercussions Of A U.S. Debt Default At Home And Abroad"
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"The Great Recession Vaporized 40% Of Americas's Net Worth. The Tea Party Intends Worse."
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"The Shutdown Is A Republican Civil War" by Ezra Klein
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Republican Rule And Economic Catastrophe: A Lockstep Relationship"
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"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"
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"Republicans for Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism
"Sarah Palin As The Mad Hatter" (Image)
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"Shocking Development: Republicans Shut Down Prefrontal Cortex"
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"American Conservatives And Oppositional Defiant Disorder"
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"Catastrophic Consequences Of A U.S. Debt Default Explained, Including A Depression"
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"Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"
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