Swing state voters say: Tax the rich to bring down the deficit

Although right-wing presenters at a recent Congressional deficit reduction town hall in Tucson downplayed taxing the rich and eliminating corporate loopholes as strategies to reduce the federal deficit, taxing the rich is a popular idea with the rest of us.

From the Huffington Post...

Poll data by the Democratic-aligned Public Policy Polling released Wednesday said voters in Ohio, Missouri, Montana and Minnesota back hiking taxes on the wealthy -- even for people with incomes as low as $150,000.

The respondents were asked: "In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose raising taxes on those with incomes over $1,000,000 a year?"

Nearly 80 percent of voters in the four states backed the idea.

This new statistic shouldn't be all that surprising, really. At the end of 2010, before Congress and the President caved and extended all Bush era tax cuts, many progressives-- like radio and TV commentator Ed Schultz-- were pleading with President Obama not to extend the cuts on the wealthy because most American's didn't agree with the strategy. Schultz strongly urged the President to hang tough and refuse to pass any cuts if  Congressional Republicans insisted on extending cuts for the wealthy.

Well, we all know what happened back in December 2010. All Congressional Republicans, enough Democrats, and the President pretended as if the US had no debt or deficit problem and extended all tax cuts for 2012. Now Republicans want to cut, cut, cut the 14 percent of the budget that is non-military, discretionary spending, while continuing to defend subsidies for Big Oil and tax cuts for the rich.

Progressives need to stand tough on this issue and defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other social safety net programs, while pushing for universal healthcare, an end to the wars, and elimination of tax cuts for the rich and subsidies for corporations that are making record profits.