Tax the rich

CNN: Tax the Rich, But Then What, Mr. President?

—Ace

 

Gee this seems familiar.

[T]here just aren't enough rich people to generate the kind of revenue needed to substantially reduce deficits. To show the disparity, consider some recent calculations by the Congressional Budget Office. Raising all six income tax rates by 1 percentage point would yield an additional $480 billion over 10 years. By contrast, raising the top two rates by 1 percentage point would yield just $115 billion.
...
All told, [Obama's proposed tax hikes only for conveniently small groups of people] -- which would affect individuals making at least $200,000 and couples making $250,000 and up -- would reduce deficits by just under $1 trillion over 10 years.
That's only about a third of the deficit reduction that would occur if lawmakers just let all of the Bush-era tax cuts expire.

A country can sustain huge subsidies for a hugely populous cohort only if it's with the other hand taking huge amounts of tax revenue from that same cohort.

The Democrats have always sold social welfare programs the same way -- they want to subsidize the poor, which is nice, but not particularly popular, so they always entice the middle class with promises that the middle class, too, will receive the same subsidies.