…[W]hen given a straight-up choice between broad spending cuts and tax increases, Americans say they would prefer to reduce the deficit mostly through less spending. It’s not even close: 62 percent for spending cuts, 29 percent for tax increases.

Republicans long ago succeeded in framing the debate around deficits because tax increases were “assumed” to be evil.

But wait…there’s more:

A few questions later, though, our pollsters offered a different choice. Would people rather eliminate Medicare’s shortfall through reduced Medicare benefits or higher taxes?

The percentages then switch, becoming nearly a mirror image of what they had been. Some 64 percent of respondents preferred tax increases, while 24 percent chose Medicare cuts. The same is true of Social Security: 63 percent for higher taxes, 25 percent for reduced benefits.

Don’t hold your breath: the richest 1% already got a two-year, guaranteed tax cut so, really, there’s nowhere to go on THIS until THAT gets ironed out.

But there is reason for optimism because the American people do have common sense:

When Americans are given a set of realistic choices, they are perfectly willing to prioritize.

The poll’s respondents, for example, said they would rather cut military spending than Medicare or Social Security (and several bipartisan groupshave made specific suggestions for doing so). If Medicare and Social Security must be changed, people prefer increasing payroll taxes on high-income households or raising the Medicare eligibility age – not cutting back on Social Security paychecks or Medicare treatments. Within the tax code, a reduced tax break for mortgage interest looks more palatable than a reduced tax break for health insurance.

Lesson learned: when the question is framed properly, the common sense solutions ARE self-evident.

Too low in fact for “Charlie.”  The other Charlie — Krauthammer who’s throwing in the towel.  Acknowledging the writing on the wall is one thing for someone who prides himself on being an intellectual, even if a batshit crazy neocon one.  But when a cheerleading buffoon like Shrub’s boot-licking apologist Fred Barns announces McSame is “doomed,” that bar could have been buried 6 feet under and it wouldn’t have been low enough for Sarah Palin to breath life into the GOP’s hopes next month.

McCain conceded Michigan and looks like he’ll abandon Pennsylvania too, is forming a firewall of red battleground states, some of which have no business being in the fight, and has probably lost Mavericky little New Hampshire too.

I don’t want to be too cocky here, cracked crystal balls and all that.  But this thing is Obama’s race to win or lose.  No more McGimmicks will change that.

It wouldn’t have taken a Great Depression scare to propel Obama to a win like Barns believes; or a disjointed, erratic candidate with zero consistency or scruples to destroy their chances as Charlie implies.  While over a quarter century of failed Reaganomics finally being exposed for all to see as the pyramid scheme it always was helped ruin the Republican brand, the reason Democrats will increase their majority in the House, take the White House and maybe get to that mythical 60 Senator threshold can be summed up in one letter: W.

The fact that they offered up a lipstick wearing version of Cheney’s attitude who has the brain-power of Bush in a skirt is just icing on the cake.  I mean, this is ridiculous:

Asked what circumstances would cause her, if she were president, to
order the use of nuclear weapons, she answered, “Nuclear weaponry, of
course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too
many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be
allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.”Say what?

But she is the hope for the future of the GOP, such as it is, that or someone just as vacuous who will grace our televisions in about two and a half years as exploratory committees are formed and presidential wannabees scope out office space in Des Moines.  Someone we will have to smack down with a strong reminder to the easily distracted American public that the conservatives are completely responsible for the catastophux we’ll be digging ourselves out from for the next several decades.

Via My Left Wing, Betsy sends along this handy talking point memo she found in the NY Times.  Keep it handy, even directly read from it point by point if you need to, repeatedly, when arguing with the remaining wingnuts when they emerge from perdition.  It’s okay since that’s what they do.  Feel free to substitute the name of the GOPer de jure for McCain, be it their next presidential candidates, a current congress critter, or the local hardware store owner who’s now running for your local city council.  They’re all the same, and they’re all idiots.

Comparing Bush and McCainWhere They Mostly Agree

Abortion and Judges

Both men oppose use of federal money for abortions, including aid
to groups that help women obtain them. Both support the ban on
Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003 and parental notification for
minors. Mr. McCain says Roe v. Wade “should be overturned,” altering
his 1999 stand, and says he would appoint Supreme Court justices who
“strictly interpret the Constitution.” He voted for both of Mr. Bush’s
picks to the court. Mr. Bush has not publicly called for repealing Roe.

Diplomacy With Iran and Syria

Like the president, Mr. McCain has ruled out direct talks with Iran
and Syria for now. Mr. McCain supported Mr. Bush when he likened those
who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals” to appeasers of the
Nazis, a remark widely interpreted as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama.

Immigration

Mr. McCain supported a 2007 bill, strongly backed by Mr. Bush, that
called for establishing a guest-worker program and setting up a path to
citizenship for illegal immigrants. He sponsored a similar bill in 2006
but this year he said he would not vote for his own proposal now. “Only
after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure,
would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the
rule of law,” he said in February.

Iraq

Mr. McCain supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but strongly
criticized the Bush administration’s handling of the war in the first
four years. He was a vocal advocate of the troop increase strategy,
eventually adopted by the president, and has supported Mr. Bush in
resisting calls for a withdrawal timetable. Last month, Mr. McCain said
he believed the war could be won by 2013; but this month he said a
timetable was “not too important,” in comparison with the level of
casualties in Iraq.

Guant?namo Detainees

Mr. McCain was a key backer of the 2006 legislation that allowed
detainees to be tried in military courts and abolished habeas corpus
rights for detainees labeled “enemy combatants” by the administration.
He would close the Guant?namo prison and move prisoners to a
maximum-security military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Health Care

Mr. McCain’s proposal to eliminate tax breaks that encourage
employers to provide health insurance for their workers is very similar
to one that Mr. Bush pushed last year, to little effect. The Bush plan
offered a $15,000 tax deduction for families buying their own
insurance, while the McCain plan would give a refundable tax credit of
$5,000 to families for insurance whether or not they pay taxes. Both
men opposed a 2007 bill to expand a children’s health insurance program
for lower- and middle-income families.

Medicare

Both support having wealthier Medicare recipients pay higher
premiums for prescription drug coverage. In 2003, Mr. McCain voted
against the bill that added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare.

Social Security

“I’m totally in favor of personal savings accounts,” he told The
Wall Street Journal in March, “along the lines that President Bush
proposed.” Mr. Bush did not find enough support in Congress for his
proposal to allow workers to divert a portion of Social Security
payroll taxes into personal investment accounts in exchange for reduced
guaranteed benefits.

Same-Sex Marriage

Mr. Bush supported a constitutional amendment to ban such
marriages, but Mr. McCain voted against it, saying states should enact
such bans. He said he would consider a constitutional ban if “a higher
court says that my state or another state has to recognize” same-sex
marriages.
Civil Union

Both would leave the matter to the states. Mr. Bush said in 2004
that he would not “deny people rights to a civil union” if a state
chose to legalize it. Mr. McCain supported a 2005 initiative in his own
state, Arizona, that would have blocked civil unions and domestic
partnerships. Last month he said that “people should be able to enter
into legal agreements” for things like insurance and power of attorney.

Taxes

Mr. McCain would make permanent the large Bush tax cuts he opposed
in 2001 and 2003. He has also proposed four new tax cuts of his own: a
reduction in the corporate tax rate, immediate tax breaks for corporate
investment, a repeal of the alternative minimum tax and doubling the
value of exemptions for dependents to $7,000 from $3,500.

Trade

Both are proponents of free trade and support opening up markets
with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. They also support education
programs to help displaced workers.

Wiretapping and Executive Power
Mr. Holtz-Eakin, a top adviser to Mr. McCain, said last week that
Mr. McCain believes that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to
authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’
international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a
federal statute that required court oversight. When Mr. McCain was
asked about the same issue in January, he had said: “I don’t think the
president has the right to disobey any law.”

Rosemary Esmay went ballistic and demanded proof that the shade of the Sheriff of Nottingham yet stalked the earth. I suggested that the present system of payroll taxes (for Social Security and Medicare) would do. I promised a response.

Interestingly enough David Mercer beat me to it.

Here’s an example: Since there is no “means testing” is social security (do you need it?), a rich retiree will reap a check every month if they are rich or poor, paid for by those working when they draw it.

Hence, the poor being taxed to pay the rich.

Excellent point David.

Allow me emphasize an important point:

Since the government has co-mingled revenue from the Social Security Trust Fund with other revenues, it is clear that anything that results in higher deficits now and in the future (i.e., massive tax cuts at the top end of the rate scale) undermines our ability to make good on the promise that Social Security represents.

Hence, the poor being taxed to pay the rich.

Ironically, POTUS declined to offer a (much smaller, more affordable and targeted) stimulus package that included a payroll tax holiday, saying “it would undermine Social Security.”

If he was really interested in shoring up SS, I’d suggest that he lose the tax cuts scheduled to take effect between now and 2010.