I got mine...

By Mustang Bobby

James Kwak in The Atlantic on the future of entitlement programs:

When people say that we can't afford our entitlement programs, they're really saying that rich people won't pay the taxes necessary to sustain our entitlement programs. To be fair, many rich people probably would be willing to pay higher taxes if they knew the facts. But a small number of extremely rich people have successfully spread the myth that we can't afford our entitlement programs.

By the way, the term "entitlement" has been used to make it sound as if people are getting something for nothing. Of course that's bullshit. Everyone who collects a paycheck pays into Social Security and Medicare. But it's not like it's going into a savings account with their name on it; they're paying for the people on it now, and when they retire, the people working will be paying for them. So if everybody — and that includes those of you in the royal boxes — pays their fair share, the system works and it will keep on working.

Ironic that the ones who are the real freeloaders are the rich folk who don't give a rat's ass about anyone else.

Along those lines, I really like what Josh Marshall has to say about how to solve the fiscal crisis:

When you want to efficiently raise revenues, you raise rates. A major simplification of the structure, rooting out all the miscellaneous loopholes and special interest deductions, is probably also a good idea. But that's for fairness and efficiency. Not what you do if the federal coffers simply need more money.

Usually when people say they're willing to raise revenues but want to do it by closing loopholes, they're BSing you. And that's most of what we're hearing today. But I think we're at the point where some of the Republicans making these arguments have gotten themselves so wrapped up in a ball of anti-tax verbiage that they may actually be ready to accept some bizarre Rube Goldberg approach to deduction caps which would raise something like the same amount of revenue as tax rate hikes. And that may be possible.

But at the end of the day, just clean your clothes. If you've got some weird hangup about doing the laundry you could keep buying new clothes after each wearing. Or you could use more perfume. Or you could socialize only with people with no noses. But at end of the day, just f'ing clean your clothes. And the same way, just raise the rates.

Anything else is just people in denial or bargaining from people who need to quickly move through all five stages and get to acceptance. Or a fight they need to have with Grover Norquist. Whatever the problem is, get into therapy, get over it and don't inflict it on the rest of the country or the nation's finances.

Just do it.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)