Ungrateful Americans Want Congress To Tax Rich To Balance Budget

Once again, we are posting the results of a 60 Minutes / Vanity Fair poll, which sets up a bowl of suet and has Annie Leibovitz take a snapshot of the Americans around it while Andy Rooney complains about how we don't use suet anymore. So what is the important lesson we have learned this time, besides what percentage of Americans knows what a quadrillion is? (Pay attention, Card Sharks contestants!) Why, it turns out, to balance the federal budget, most Americans say they would increase taxes on the wealthy as the "first step." Don't those ingrates know how much they owe the kind wealth-inheritors of this country? Though actually, the poll is flawed, as it makes Americans choose from things that would actually cut the deficit.

Here are the four options: "increase taxes on the wealthy," "cut defense spending," "cut Medicare," and "cut Social Security." 61% picked taxing, 20% picked the defense spending, and only a combined 7% chose the other two. Obviously, this isn't fair, because everyone knows the best way to cut the deficit is to only cut things that would have relatively no effect on the deficit, like earmarks. 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair are so out of touch. Nobody is really in favor of actual solutions to our financial problems.

Rich-people tax cuts, defense spending, Medicare, and Social Security are the four pillars of our government and thus cannot be cut, even if that would make a sizable dent in the deficit. Americans are going to have to learn that, one way or another. Their silly Hope Man did. [ Vanity Fair ]