Roger:

A lot of typically Kimballian rhetoric but not much substance. Obama is only planning on reversing the Bush tax cuts and making a few other, modestly progressive changes. Taxes will still be lower under his budget than they were under Reagan’s. Breathe, Roger, breathe.

One more thing. The “class warfare” rhetoric is all in your head: it’s pure projection. And what’s so outlandish about talk of “fairness”? Look at it this way: The flatter the tax code, the greater the tax burden is on less wealthy earners. After all, the necessities cost the same for everyone, rich and poor alike, and a flat rate would take a bigger bite out of a $45,000 a year salary than out of a $250,000 a year or a $2,500,000 a year salary. But putting a greater portion of the burden of paying for government on the less wealthy is unfair since government serves everyone. The way, then, to achieve some measure of tax burden equalization while avoiding disincentives to work, thus shrinking the economy, is to implement a modestly progressive tax scheme. This is precisely what liberal Democrats want to do. And it’s precisely what most voters believe to be the right thing.

No socialism here, no Marxism, certainly no “Leninist” plots to “destroy the United States.” There’s just modestly regulated free-market capitalism with a progressive income tax to pay for a government that provides some measure of basic protection against the unforeseen consequences of the market’s workings.

This is all middle-of-the-road, Roger. At least it was until far-right extremists like yourself took the reigns. Well, elections have consequences, as someone once said. And the extremists are no longer in charge. Voters have seen to that.