To respond to some of the comments in this thread, yes, I'm agreeing, at least in principle, with Snodgrass when she says that Obama's tax plan will not raise sufficient revenue and will end up harming the working class in the long run. Without getting too Concord Coalition on you, the government does have a variety of long-term social policy commitments that far exceed its current revenue streams. If you don't increase revenue gradually in the short-term -- and Obama's plan does not increase revenue -- then you're either looking at sharper tax hikes in the long-term, drastic reforms, or some mixture of both. Presumably, the majority of those tax hikes will fall on the wealthy. But not all of them. And a lot of those reforms will probably hit the middle class -- they'll slash subsidies, or cut benefits for future retirees, or lower the retirement age, or whatever. Most government policy is progressive, and cutbacks tend to hurt the working class and the poor. This isn't, of course, the point of Obama's tax plan, but it is the implication of continually cutting taxes while increasing spending. Maybe there'll be some deus ex machina in the form of single payer or an end to defense spending or something. But in all likelihood, Democrats are going to have to eventually figure out how to raise revenues again.
