I would be all for a tax increase rather than this. The problem is that the American public has been trained to shun any kind of a tax hike, whether or not the country actually needs it, or even in spite of the fact that raising taxes can actually HELP the economy by preventing huge bubbles like the one we just experienced. Imposing a tax on the particular kind of securitization that was going on would have made this problem much less bad than it is right now.
You are preaching to the converted here. I would prefer if we could just hike taxes and be done with it. But that is unfortunately a politically unacceptable move.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
