Despite slashing the national debt by an additional $1.8 trillion over the next decade, President Obama's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget was received with two predictable talking points by Republican leaders. House Majority Eric Cantor, who previously complained about being called a "hostage taker," protested that "we ought to do so without holding [entitlement cuts] hostage for more tax hikes." His fellow debt-ceiling hostage-taker John Boehner echoed that sound bite, proclaiming "I would hope that he would not hold hostage these modest reforms for his demand for bigger tax hikes." But Boehner didn't end there:

"The president got his tax hikes in January; we don't need to be raising taxes on the American people."

Speaker Boehner couldn't be more wrong. As it turns out, Uncle Sam has a well-documented need for more tax revenue in the years ahead. And a big reason why is that between them, Presidents Bush and Obama cut taxes by more than the five times the amount of the combined new revenue hikes Obama got in January and is asking for now.

The chart above tells the tale. Leaving aside the new funding contained in the Affordable Care Act, President Obama is seeking $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue over the next decade. With the fiscal cliff deal in January, Obama got about $620 billion, or about half that amount. Individuals making over $400,000 a year (and households earning over $450,000) will see their income tax rate return to its Clinton-era level of 39.6 percent. The capital gains rate similarly will be reset at 20 (from 15) percent. In his FY 2014 budget proposal, the President has asked for another $580 billion by 2023, primarily by capping deductions for the wealthy at 28 percent, instituting the so-called "Buffett Rule," and ending tax breaks for the booming energy sector.

But Obama's $1.2 trillion in current and requested tax increases pales in comparison to the roughly $6.4 trillion he and George W. Bush will have drained from the U.S. Treasury between 2001 and 2023.

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**The subject of this video is the kind of thing DC bipartisanship gets you

There is no word in the English language that allows the sun to poke through the clouds, inspires cherubic song and makes lobbyists high five while lording over a beer-joint urinal on in official Washington than "bipartisan". Bipartisan is just so darn cool. It's hip! It's now! It's Rand Paul's talking filibuster and Charlie Krauthammer's sardonic wit and Justice John Robert's dreamy blue eyes all rolled up into one big pig in a blanket!

Or, and I'm just thinking aloud here, perhaps when that word is uttered in Washington there is only once choice to be made: Run.

Because you see, there is actually bipartisanship that makes sense. It is all over the US. It will tell you that over 90 percent of the American public thinks there should be a 3-minute background checks before you purchase a combat weapon that can dismember kindergarten-aged kids, that the minimum wage should surpass that of Heilongjiang Province and that marriage equality is a concept long overdue.

But that is not the bipartisanship that exists in Washington. This brand of bipartisanship is based on Beltway "wisdom" and the status of who happens to be presenting the case. It's the variety that just gave us the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy in Iraq and rewarded Condoleezza Rice of the "smoking gun", "mushroom cloud" and "what does 'Bin Laden determined to attack in US' mean" with a new role as a political analyst on CBS - as if she can figure out day in and day out how to tie her shoes.

That's bipartisanship DC style. It ignored Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Trayvon Martin and finally got around to thinking we have a gun problem after grotesque inaction reached its logical conclusion, with 20 six and seven year olds mowed down like cattle in their classroom. Even so, while there is much support for gun safety measures, there is still some "bipartisan" opposition.

This kind of Washington bipartisanship looks at this war-of-choice that's now estimated to have cost in the trillions (yes, that's with a T), out-of-control health care costs via a crony-capitalism protection racket and a Pentagon so bloated with fat it's a surprise Rush Limbaugh doesn't eat it with a side of his happy pills for dinner, and concludes (behind the leadership of our very own ostensibly Democratic President) "let's rob the old moochers of their earned benefits!"

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Public opinion matters a great deal in the American system of government, just as it does in any democracy. But it sure isn’t the only thing that matters, as the following true story demonstrates. It’s what I call A Tale Of Two Constituencies.

Before I get deeper into my tale, though, my reader should know that in the land this tale comes from, the President had been elected and re-elected on not only a progressive platform, but arguably with the most populist rhetoric in 40 years. He had run his campaigns on fighting for the middle class, protecting the vulnerable from harm, taxing the wealthy, and taking on the wealthy special interests who were harming our economy. His re-election campaign had bragged about taking on Wall Street, and harshly criticized the vulture capitalist business practices of his opponent. And because of running these kinds of campaign, this President won 2 decisive victories in a row, becoming the first President of his center-left party to win a clear majority of the votes more than once since the 1930s.

So that gives you a sense of the kind of land this was, and the kind of President they had. Now for my tale. You see there two constituencies I wanted to compare and contrast in this democratic land governed by this center-left populist…

The first was extremely small in number, depending on how you count it only a few thousand people at the most. They represented the least popular institution in American society, even less popular in many polls than the Congress, which was saying something in a land where the Congressional leadership had been rated as less popular than head lice and root canal surgery. The group in question was widely blamed for an economic collapse more severe than any in 80 years, and was widely believed by journalists covering them, lawyers for many different clients who had dealt with them, and ex-prosecutors following their practices to have engaged in massive and wide-scale fraud on top of an estimated million counts of perjury in just one scam that they pulled off (something referred to by the media as robo-signing). They were reviled by every major bloc of American voters, including those of the conservative party as well as by all the key blocs of swing voters. And to top it all off, with their money and their rhetoric, they overwhelmingly supported the losing candidate in the Presidential election.

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Here it is, the attack on our earned benefits. Please, keep calling. The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414. The comments line is 202-456-1111.

Numbers for the Senate are here.
Numbers for the House are here.

President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a $3.77 trillion spending plan that proposes modest new investments in infrastructure and education, major new taxes for the wealthy and significant reforms aimed at reducing the cost of Social Security and Medicare.

“Our economy is poised for progess, as long as Washington doesn’t get in the way,” Obama said in announcing his budget plan on the South Lawn of the White House. He said his budget represents “a fiscally responsible blueprint for middle-class jobs and growth.”

“We don’t view this budget as a starting point in the negotiations. This is an offer where the president came more than halfway toward the Republicans,” a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity to detail the forthcoming document.

“So this is our sticking point,” the official said. “And the question is: are Republicans going to be willing to come to us to do serious things to reduce our deficits” – including raising taxes on millionaires.

So far, senior Republicans have rejected the proposal, which would sharply increase both spending and deficits next year over current projections. While the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts $3.6 trillion in outlays in the fiscal year that begins in October, Obama calls for $170 billion more.

And while the CBO forecasts a deficit of $616 billion in 2014, Obama calls for a larger gap between spending and revenues of $744 billion, administration officials said, or 4.4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

The budget gap would narrow over the coming decade, shrinking to 1.7 percent of GDP by 2023, when the national debt would also be shrinking as a measure of the overall economy.

But Obama proposes to lop only about $600 billion off projected borrowing over the next decade — trillions of dollars less than the austere, balanced-budget package that House Republicans endorsed earlier this year. While Obama proposes $1.8 trillion in new savings and tax revenue over the next decade, much of the money would be dedicated to replacing the sequester, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts that went into effect March 1.

Obama’s deficit-reduction plan mirrors the offer he made in December to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) in negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff. At the time, Obama called for $1.2 trillion in new taxes. The fiscal cliff deal included roughly $600 billion in new revenues over the next decade, with the bulk of the money coming from higher rates on households earning more than $450,000 a year.

[...] As he has in the past, Obama proposes to slice $400 billion from federal health programs, primarily Medicare, with the bulk of the cuts falling on drug companies and other providers. But Medicare beneficiaries would also take a hit, through higher premiums for couples making more than $170,000 a year and inducements for low-income recipients to use more generic drugs.

And for the first time, Obama formally proposes to slow the growth in Social Security benefits by applying a less-generous measure of inflation to programs throughout the federal government. The change would trim cost-of-living increases by roughly 0.3 percent a year, saving the government about $130 billion over the next decade.

White House officials said the new inflation measure — known as the chained consumer price index, or chained CPI — would not apply to programs for the poor, such as Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, and would be adjusted to reduce the impact on people 77 or older.

The deficit-reduction plan mirrors an offer Obama made in December to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) in negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff. At the time, Obama called for $1.2 trillion in new taxes, but the fiscal cliff deal included roughly $600 billion in new revenues over the next decade, with the bulk of the money coming from higher rates on households earning more than $450,000 a year.

Obama’s decision to include chained CPI in his budget proposal has infuriated many Democrats, and a number of liberal lawmakers protested the Social Security cuts Tuesday at the White House. Republicans, meanwhile, who have pressed the president to put the change on the table, have so far dismissed the offer as too “modest” to justify GOP support for higher taxes.

The Obama administration on Friday lifted the covers on its compromise budget proposal for fiscal year 2014. While Obama's blueprint would slash the national debt by a projected $1.8 trillion over the next decade (bringing the total reductions since 2011 to $4.3 trillion) through painful changes to Social Security and Medicare, Republicans are predictably balking at Obama's call for $580 billion in new tax revenue. Despite the administration's up-front concessions on spending, GOP leaders including John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor continue to repeat their talking points that "the President got his tax hikes in January" and "the discussion about revenue is over."

But as a quick glance at U.S. budgets past and future shows, the discussion over tax revenue should be far from over. For starters, thanks to two wars, the new unfunded Medicare prescription drug program and the government responses to the 2008 financial meltdown, federal spending surged over the previous decade even as tax revenue as a percentage of the U.S. economy hit 60 year lows. And looking ahead, the U.S. Treasury will need to raise revenues higher than the historical average not just to fill the massive hole left by the Naughts, but to fund $2 trillion more in war-related spending, to address the aging of the U.S. population and to meet the public's demands for more, not less, spending across almost every area of government.

Here are 10 reasons why Uncle Sam needs more tax revenue. (Click a link to jump to the details for each.)

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In the first three years of the Clinton White House, there were two memorable budget wars, in 1993 and 1995. The open fights with the Republicans were brutal, highest-of-high stakes white-knuckle showdowns where Clinton’s entire Presidency was on the line. Behind the scenes, though, our internal fights inside the White House were almost as intense. One thing I will never forget was a meeting where my old friend Bob Boorstin, one of the earliest staffers to join Clinton’s campaign, was fighting to keep some important line items in place that would help the poor, and bluntly told President Clinton, “Your budget represents your values.”

While those of us fighting for more spending to help low- and middle-income people lost a few rounds in these internal debates, we won more than we lost, and in both 1993 and 1995 the budgets Clinton presented and the ones he ended up negotiating with Congress were quite progressive. The 1993 budget raised taxes on the wealthy, lowered taxes on the poor through a big expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and increased investment in programs like education, the environment, Head Start, and Student Grants and Loans. In the 1995 budget showdown with the Republicans in Congress, Clinton rejected the advice of people like Mark Penn that he avoid a showdown, and decided to draw a line in the sand to save “Medicare, Medicaid, Education, and the Environment” from cuts Gingrich wanted to impose, and he decisively won that battle. In all of the budgets that Clinton proposed and negotiated with Congress while President, he (for the most part) embraced Democratic values.

Twenty years after Clinton’s first epic budget battle, our current Democratic president is wrestling with what budget to propose to Congress. The House and the Senate have already proposed radically different ideas of what a budget should look like, so obviously what Obama proposes is just one part of a much longer budget debate, but symbolically, as a presentation of his values, it remains a very important moment. The president has been spending the last year and a half talking about how he wants to fight for the middle class, and his budget should reflect those values.

This is why it is so deeply troubling, as the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets are now reporting, that Obama is strongly considering putting a Social Security cut into his budget document. By doing this, the President can no longer fall back on what he has been telling progressives and Democrats in Congress, that he doesn’t want to cut Social Security but is willing to trade it for some good things that the Republicans would give up in a budget deal. By embracing- embracing! Social Security cuts as part of his budget, his statement of values, the President is telling the American public, senior citizens, and progressives that he wants to cut what they overwhelmingly and passionately support.

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That video was three short weeks ago, and in the interim, they've done it again, with the full compliance of the Republican party.

Three short weeks ago, we were talking about minimum wage hikes, infrastructure, economic growth, and pre-K for all! Now we're back to the same old nonsense about budgets and spending and austerity and "entitlements."

Why does it happen? I don't have the resources to actually count the number of reports done across cable and mainstream news, but the word "sequester" was used far too often. More reports have been done more consistently about budget cuts than just about anything else. Pundits are invited on the air to discuss them, people who have a vested interest in making sure austerity and 'cuts' are in the forefront of the collective American mind.

Those most bent over these automatic cuts are large public corporations, particularly large defense contractors. This is not to say that these cuts are good. They're not. They do have a 'trickle down' effect, and in this case it's likely to affect people I know and love. It might even have an effect on me directly, but indirectly it certainly will, as the economy slows and the next downturn kicks in.

Krugman is right: We're having the wrong conversation. The only way it's going to turn around is if we make that happen. The Occupy movement did it splendidly in 2011, despite many efforts to discredit and disrupt them. They put the focus back on working people, instead of the corporate masters who so desperately want to distract us.

As long as Republicans keep the focus on austerity, they're winning. The President is right to keep hammering on them for their refusal to deal. We all know they're not going to deal even if he hands them everything on a silver platter. Even 100 percent capitulation on Democrats' part would not bring a deal. Politically, the budget and spending are the only areas they have any traction at all.

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Judge Andrew Napolitano has now added “impeachment” to the list of usual Republican attacks on President Obama over the looming sequester cuts. During a visit to Fox & Friends, he and Steve Doocy went through some familiar right-wing myths about the sequester – that it’s just a small reduction in future spending and therefore no biggie – and went on to accuse “President Panic” of deliberately sabotaging the budget – i.e. making the cuts as damaging as possible in order to punish Republicans.

DOOCY: As Commander-in-Chief, he should be making any future reductions in future spending as easy as possible. But instead he and his cabinet are out there and they’re scaring the living daylights out of people. …He’s become President Panic.

NAPOLITANO: …This is almost an impeachable offense. If the President is deciding how to spend money in order to hurt us, rather than in order to provide us with the services for which we have paid, and for which we have hired him, he is doing the opposite of doing of what he has taken an oath to do. He has taken an oath “faithfully,” I underscore the word… to uphold the laws. That means make the government work. Don’t make it painful. Find a way to make it work on 2% less.

…Instead, he wants to cut in a way that’s gonna make us stand on line for five hours at the airport, quote, to teach the Republicans a lesson.

While the Foxies were busy maligning the president, they didn’t have time left to consider how the sequester might affect everyday people not earning television-pundit salaries and not with a partisan agenda: Teaching jobs and education funding are at risk; unemployment insurance benefits and aid for Hurricane Sandy victims are also subject to sequester. The Bipartisan Policy Center reported the following:

(T)he immediate and across the board nature of the cuts, along with their magnitude concentrated in a seven-month period, will impair economic growth as the year progresses. At BPC, we estimated last year that the sequester would reduce 2013 gross domestic product (GDP) growth by half a percentage point, and would cost the economy approximately one million jobs over the next two years. More recent estimates released by the CBO and Macroeconomic Advisors have roughly confirmed these projections.

I couldn’t find anything in their report that said these would only happen if President Obama deliberately jiggered the cuts.

Oh, and while they were salivating at the thought of impeachment (and never mind THAT cost!), nobody mentioned that President Obama has already put forth a plan to replace the sequester that includes over $930 billion in spending cuts and $580 billion in new tax revenue.

(Video removed at request of owner.)

Austerity is perhaps the single worst idea to come from the political elite over the past half decade, and that's saying a lot. It hurts people, "punishes" them as George Logothetis points out above. As he also says, it breeds extremism (the Tea Party here, Golden Dawn in Greece).

We need more smart, savvy businessmen like Logothetis out there among our elite. Ones who realize we need "capitalism with a conscience," that "the more one has, the higher the duty one has to give back," and perhaps most importantly, that "you're only as rich as the person next to you is poor."

Watch the video, it is well worth it.

While most eyes were trained on the State of the Union address (or a burning cabin in California), PBS last Tuesday aired a documentary on the ongoing fiscal deadlock in Washington titled, "Cliffhanger." In it, the House Speaker John Boehner is portrayed as hopelessly trapped between an equivocating and untrustworthy President Obama who "poisoned the well" and an immovable Tea Party caucus manipulated by the hyper-ambitious Eric Cantor. But the usually excellent Frontline series didn't merely get lost in the weeds of DC politics. When it comes to the unprecedented Republican debt ceiling hostage-taking that precipitated Washington's "cliffhanger," PBS missed the forest for the trees altogether.

What is the Fiscal Cliff? One of the most striking omissions from a film titled "Cliffhanger" is any definition of the so-called "fiscal cliff." That triple witching hour on January 1, 2013 when the Bush tax cuts and the two-year payroll tax reduction set to expire just as the $1.2 trillion, ten-year sequester was to begin is never fully explained. (The sequester drop-dead date was shifted to March 1.) And the risk in that manufactured crisis was not that the United States would suddenly increase its national debt, but instead reduce too quickly and thus trigger a steep (and unnecessary) recession.

Glossing Over the Original Sin. In "Cliffhanger", Frontline's sins are myriad. But none is more crucial than skirting past the original sin itself. That is, the Republican threat beginning in 2011 to trigger a default on the full faith and credit of the United States isn't just without parallel in modern American history. It is the GOP's extortion over the debt ceiling (which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called "a hostage that's worth ransoming" and a "new template") which is responsible for the sequester and "fiscal cliff" showdowns which followed.

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