busenbust
^^^^
http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works/2011/06/29/obama_naive_class_warfare/index.html
Three years into his presidency, Barack Obama is still hoping that Republican legislators will change their colors and start acting in what he sees as the best interests of the nation. In a press conference on Wednesday, while discussing the need to include both spending cuts and revenue increases as part of a "balanced approach" toward debt reduction, he repeated a long-standing theme.
"Leaders rise to the occasion and do the right thing," said President Obama in a press conference on Wednesday. "Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead."
All right then, Mr. President. You're naive.
In his opening statement, Obama made a case for cutting tax breaks for some of the most privileged Americans. He specified "millionaires and billionaires, oil companies, hedge fund owners, and corporate jet owners," a kind of murderer's row of top-hatted icons that average Americans are likely to have little sympathy for. Class warfare, to be sure, but completely justified class warfare. These are exactly the people who have benefited the most from structural changes in the U.S. economy over the last three decades while everyone else has stagnated or fallen back.
Obama needs to look in the mirror and repeat to himself his own mantra about how "leaders are going to lead." If he wants a debt ceiling deal that includes revenue increases he's going to have to take a hard line in negotiations that matches Republican intransigence. That will mean brinkmanship, it will mean upsetting the bond market, and it will mean risking a financial disaster. My own belief is that the majority of Americans will understand pretty clearly that Republican resistance to higher taxes on the richest Americans will be the real guilty party culpable for a meltdown. But there's no question it's a hell of a risk to take.
But that's what leaders do.