Tax Fairness, or the End of the Middle Class? We have a choice.

How odd is it that the tea party thinks tax increases on the middle class are okay during these recessionary times? You don't see them complaining in Michigan or Wisconsin do you. If fact, where the hell are they?

It's time we truly share the pain:

CBSnews: Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky's bill, called the Fairness in Taxation Act, would tax income between $1 million and $10 million at a rate of 45 percent. Income between $10 and $20 million would be taxed at a rate of 46 percent, and income between $20 and $100 million would be taxed at 47 percent. 

 Income between $100 million and $1 billion would be taxed at a rate of 48 percent, and income over $1 billion would be taxed at 49 percent. For those making over $1 million a year, capital gains and dividends would also be taxed as income. 

 Schakowsky claims the bill could raise more than $78 billion for the government. 

 Schakowsky said that it's time to make tax brackets fit the growing income disparity in the United States. A recent poll from CBS News' "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine found that between the choices of cutting defense spending, cutting Medicare, cutting Social Security, or raising taxes on the rich, 61 percent preferred raising taxes on the rich to balance the federal budget.

 In the Humpty Dumpty world of unfettered capitalism can the following statement make any sense at all:

The Heritage Foundation’s David Weinberger contends that income inequality does not matter -- because "equality of opportunity and equality of consumption have never been so ubiquitous."

Is he kidding? From what I’ve seen, and what the facts tell us, the income disparity has never been wider.  And the conservative complaint that there are too many deductions, that could only mean one thing; the poor and middle class get to many deductions, like on mortgage interest. It certainly doesn’t mean dividends should be taxed as income.  

 Too many deductions, credits and exemptions in the tax code are causing the government to "hemorrhage revenue" and creating a drag on the economy, Dubay argues.