It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million. Anybody who says we can’t change the tax code to correct that, anyone who has signed some pledge to protect every single tax loophole so long as they live, they should be called out. They should have to defend that unfairness — explain why somebody who’s making $50 million a year in the financial markets should be paying 15 percent on their taxes, when a teacher making $50,000 a year is paying more than that — paying a higher rate. They ought to have to answer for it. And if they’re pledged to keep that kind of unfairness in place, they should remember, the last time I checked the only pledge that really matters is the pledge we take to uphold the Constitution.
President Barack Obama, showing a little fight. It is very late in the game for them to start in on this (frankly, this sort of thing should have been said on January 20, 2009), but it should prove utterly devastating. If (and because it’s a big if) IF they stick to it. For decades. Win or lose. Year after year after poisonous year. Because that is what it is going to take. Repeating this every time a microphone is turned on. Every time.
Lemkin 