"Tackle the Debt"? Easy - Soak the Rich and Hire 10 Million Unemployed

UPDATE Below

It's amazing, the straight lines the rethuglicans keep handing Obama.

Senate Republicans will not support an increase to the federal debt limit unless the president vows to tackle the nation's debt, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday.

But not as amazing as the way Obama keeps letting them clunk to the ground without even trying to respond.

You know what he's going to do: offer to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Because total capitulation is how our president negotiates with rethuglicans.

Here's what he should say:

"Tackle the debt? GREAT. The fastest and easiest way to get our debt down to where it was when Bill Clinton left office is to ... wait for it ... raise revenue.

"And the two fastest and easiest ways to raise revenue are, first: to restore the top tax rate that President Eisenhower maintained during the Golden Era of the 1950s that Speaker Boehner misses so much. That's 90 percent on all income over $1 million.

"Second, get our 10 million unemployed citizens paying taxes again. Their new jobs will be rebuilding the nation's infrastructure and creating the infrastructure of the future. They will be getting paid by the federal government while working for the nation, both through their own labor and through the multiplier effect of spending their incomes throughout the economy.

"I wish to thank Minority Leader McConnell for making our choice so stark: either we raise revenue through high taxes on the rich and a new Works Progress Administration, or we default on our national debt.

"I pledge to Senator McConnell, to members of Congress, and to every American: I will do everything in my power to hike taxes on the rich and put Americans back to work, thus slashing our debt and restoring our national credit."

Let the rethuglicans shut down the government. Let them take the blame. Make your offer and stand firm on it.

Cave yet again, and you may very well win re-election. But you'll do it at the price of turning the United States of America into Haiti.

Have you talked to your Democratic neighbors today?

UPDATE, 3:25 p.m.: Senator Bernie Sanders is already there.

Well, at least one member of the United States Senate is listening to the people on where this "shared sacrifice" should be coming from to reduce the deficit and it's not the working class.

Release: Sanders Introduces Emergency Deficit Reduction Act:

March 10, 2011

Bill to Create a Millionaires Surtax and End Tax Breaks for Big Oil

WASHINGTON, March 10 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced The Emergency Deficit Reduction Act that would establish a surtax on millionaires and eliminate tax breaks for big oil and gas companies.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....