A Different Way To Balance The Budget

Economix, via Mark Thoma:

Consider a largely invisible proposal for balancing the budget, the People’s Budget, released in April by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which includes 83 members of Congress. Its proposed budget savings include major cuts to military spending based on immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Its proposed revenue sources include new tax brackets for the rich (from 45 percent on income over a million dollars a year to 49 percent on income over a billion a year), restoring the estate tax and eliminating the Bush tax cuts.
The Economic Policy Institute provides a more detailed supportive analysis. Proponents have also developed a three-way comparison with budget proposals advocated by President Obama and Congressional Republicans that allows you to register your own preference.
Deficit hawks (at least those who are not tax chickens) should welcome the People’s Budget, because it offers a plausible path to debt reduction.
Matt Miller of The Washington Post noted that the People’s Budget would, unlike the Roadmap for America’s Future advanced by Representative Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee, generate a budget surplus at a predictable point in the future, winning the “fiscal responsibility derby.”

Republicans strategy is to cut spending enough that they can lower taxes more.  That might sound good to average folks, but it is their Social Security and Medicare which will get cut to make way for more tax cuts for the people who make the most money.  I would suggest the 49% tax rate on income over $5 or $10 million.  If a person made $20 million, they'd still take home over $10.4 million a year (excluding state and local  taxes).  That ain't chicken scratch.  Assuming the person works 80 hours a week with no vacation, that's $2500 an hour in take-home pay.  I'm not sure what kind of work earns that kind of pay, but it makes autoworkers look like a bargain.