What we're talking about in the US these days is the extention and increase of tax breaks for multinational corporations and for the wealthiest individuals. That's not the same as imposing new taxes. And, for every dollar no longer being paid by Exxon-Mobil and Bill Gates, someone else who is less able to afford it has to pony up a buck.

We currently have the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of a relative few since the Great Depression. "Redistribution of wealth" has already happened! Putting things back to right is what we need, and should not be characterized as "un-American." And those creeps who love to sneer the phrase "class warfare" are the very ones who have already launched an economic-class-based sneak attack and have been winning big gains for years.

Granting the overprivileged 2% ever-more favorable treatment is no good for anyone. When the vast majority of the population is too broke to buy stuff, the economy grinds to a halt.

Last Friday's Bill Maher show (currently repeating on HBO) included a very telling quote from one of FDR's associates in the slow-but-eventually-successful recovery from the 1929 financial fiasco. I don't have the guy's name or the exact wording, but it went something like this:

"Our economy had become like a poker game where a very few players had grabbed up almost all the chips. Everyone else had to borrow to stay in the game, and when their credit ran out, the game was over."