In the video below, CNBC’s Steve Leisman explains the results of a recent CNBC survey on the fiscal cliff. The survey indicates that Americans are still living in la-la land when it comes to the nation’s fiscal crisis. To solve the fiscal crisis, a wide majority of Americans favor raising taxes on the “rich”, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. If Americans know that somebody has to get punched in the gut, most will say better him than me. Of course even if we do raise taxes on the “rich” it will only reduce the deficit by about $100 billion. That isn’t going to make much of a dent in our $1 trillion plus deficit. So where do Americans suggest we get the other $900 billion? Not from spending cuts or entitlement reforms. Respondents to the CNBC survey say that spending and entitlement cuts are unacceptable solutions to the fiscal cliff. That must mean that a majority of Americans favor higher taxes on the middle-class. Nope, higher taxes on the middle-class are also rejected as an acceptable solution to the fiscal cliff. Sounds like Americans are confused.
It seems the President’s obsession with hiking taxes on the rich has conned a majority of Americans into believing that higher taxes on the rich are actually a solution to the fiscal crisis. Little do most Americans know that if the President doesn’t agree to massive spending cuts as part of a deal to raise taxes on the “rich,” they are next in the firing line for higher taxes. Check out the second video from Howard Dean. Mr. Dean is one of the few progressives who admits that you can’t fund big government without raising taxes on the middle-class.