Cliff Diving

I'm sure as we approach Jan. 1 the title of this post will grace many op-eds in papers around the country.  It's just too perfect.  Even if it is a bunch of malarkey, the picture it calls to mind is so powerful, it can't be resisted by cool reason.  A crisis is much more fun than a slow moving freight train if you are a TV personality or a columnist.  Also, why waste words on boring fiscal analysis which would surely justify the Democrats position when you can show the donkey and the elephant charging over the "cliff" in lockstep.  Then it's nobody's fault.  Or everybody's.  Personally, I think we should let the tax rate go back to Clinton era levels on everyone making more than $100,000/year.  Then raise the rates progressively and add new brackets to account for the 2% of the population who have garnered most of the wealth the country has created in the last 30 years.  Let's go to a top tax rate of 70% on income over $10,000.000/year.  Even Warren Buffet may squeal at that, but that is what it will take to bring down the deficit and maintain the minimal safety net programs the rest of the population now "enjoys".  Globalization has stratified the wealth to a degree not seen since the great depression and there needs to be a mechanism to redistribute the spoils among the greater population.   Without some variation of the above, the middle class will cease to exist and the winds of revolution will begin to blow.