editorials

Surprisingly objective assessment by the editorial board. What is needed is honest comunication and a fact based solution. We need serious cuts to govt spending and tax increases to everyone. The election rhetoric around taxing the rich as the solution was at best a lie. Too bad so many people believed it...

"The election rhetoric around taxing the rich as the solution was at best a lie. Too bad so many people believed it..." Of course it was. But when has Truth ever been an important part of politics? In any case this continuing debate on how to best re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic is a classic exercise in futility. We've already gone over the cliff. Our task now is to pick up the pieces as best wek can.

"We need serious cuts to govt spending and tax increases to everyone" Ya, elmore1, your suggestion is currently at work in Europe. It's called austerity, and it has their economies slowing down and cooling off. If you really do not wish this country to end like like Greece or Spain, then it would be wise not to emulate their current policies. That said, the Strib is correct in saying that Congress and the Obama administration accomplished very little in terms of fiscal cliff avoidance, and another massive battle with the Party of No looms just ahead over the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, the political will does not exist in this country to do what needs to be done with our finances.

"Taking the rich" was never marketed as a silver bullet to our fiscal problems. It was a necessary populist move so that when the needed tax increases are made on the middle class, we won't be paying even more than the wealthy as a percentage of income than we already do.

beebee82, it will never be enough. Because we have become a society of free handouts for everyone it will never be enough. I understand why people do not WANT to cut spending. It is why we have credit cards. What I don't get is why so many people are O.K. with pretending we have money we don't. Then when it all comes crashing down (i.e. housing market), we blame people for "letting us" get homes we couldn't afford. What a joke. We are a blame society and we do not care about fixing the problem we just want someone to blame. It is sad and it is why we will continue to deteriorate as a nation.

beebee82 - ["Taking the rich" was never marketed as a silver bullet to our fiscal problems. It was a necessary populist move so that when the needed tax increases are made on the middle class, we won't be paying even more than the wealthy as a percentage of income than we already do.] *** It was a "populist move" to get elected, demonizing and scapegoating the rich as bad sounds great during an election. I don't remember Obama saying "but this won't solve our deficit problems and we must make cuts" after demonizing the rich or Republicans. I also find the solution of jacking up tax rates on the rich as a band-aid that won't help the economy or address the real problem of capital gains rates being too low vs regular income rates. You're right, it was a great strategy to get elected but in no way does it help our economic situation, it does not clean up the tax code and it does nothing to address the deficit (since we are going to spend every dollar raised through tax increases on Sandy aid).