He's Only Half "Reich"

In "Beware the "middle ground" of the Great Budget Debate" posted at Salon.com today, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes,

According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC poll, 78 percent of Americans oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to reduce the debt, and 72 percent support raising taxes on the rich -- including 68 percent of Independents and 54 percent of Republicans.

In other words, the center of America isn't near halfway between the two sides. It's overwhelmingly on the side of the President and the Democrats...

I agree with Reich's general thesis: the opinions of most Americans don't fall into the center point between the two mainstream parties. But I disagree with his conclusion. When it comes to federal economic policy, the majority of Americans are far to the left of the Democrats!!

Contrary to Reich's supposition that the Democrats haven't fallen into "deficit reduction" archipelago, most of their economic blueprints -- save for the People's budget supported by the Progressive Caucus -- are merely degrees less regressive than the GOP counterparts. Neither party is seriously talking about jobs, Wall Street regulation or doing anything substantive about the foreclosure crisis.

While there is no question in my mind that American opinion on non-economic issues is greatly muddled, I don't think this is true when it comes to the federal budget. Most thinking individuals realize that revenue must be part of the discussion and about the only revenue-related issue most Democrats even will entertain is the narrow sliver of the Bush tax cuts. While allowing those to expire would be a good first step, the revenue discussion needs to move on from there.