Obama Taketh and Taketh and Taketh

Over at The Atlantic, Daniel Indiviglio shows the how the President's proposed "Buffet Rule"--hiking taxes on the wealthiest Americans who already pay much more than their fair share--is nothing more than an old Democrat standby:  class warfare.

Here is Daniel's chart:

As you can see, even if earners in the top income tax bracket are taxed at 100%, there is still 2/3rds of the debt left to make up for this year alone.

When one looks at reality, it's truly amazing that Obama's strategy is to make the Republicans look extreme and not up to the task of dealing with the tough issues.  Where is the tough talk of entitlement reform?  Reforming Social Security?  Reforming Medicare?  We all heard rumors being leaked out of the White House during the negotiations with Republicans about how Obama was open to these kinds of reforms during the summer.

I will leave it to Daniel to explain the obvious:

So this Buffet Rule is a great populist proposal if the president wants to score some political points, but it has little practical value. It might provide the government a little bit of additional revenue, but unless extremely aggressive, it wouldn't make a dent in the nation's deficit problem. To do that, you'll need to cut entitlements and/or raise taxes much more broadly.