So France bounces Sarkozy and Greece bounces them all. A morality play for US austerity proponents.

[jeff47]

16. That is a truly stunning amount of wrong to put into a single post.

Our federal government spends money into existence and taxes money out of existence.

False.

The government has a bank account. It's called the Treasury. Money flows into that account via taxes and bond sales. Money flows out of that account via government spending. (Technically, there's multiple accounts)

Money is not simply printed - that would be massively inflationary, as in the Weimar republic. Instead, the government receives income from taxes, and any shortfall is funded by selling bonds.

When you mail your cash or check to the IRS or send an electronic transfer, the money is literally destroyed

False. The funds are deposited into the treasury.

Cash is shredded

False. Cash is only destroyed by the Federal Reserve, which is not the treasury. The Fed shreds money when it's worn out. If you used new bills to pay your taxes, those bills would return to circulation through the Federal Reserve system.

It doesn't get transferred to some agency to help cover federal employee wages or buy a new aircraft carrier.

Again, false. The government has a bank accounts. The difference is they are their own bank; they're not going down to the local BofA and using the ATM.

Reducing the deficit is a completely idiotic goal which has no meaning and no basis in reality. Deficits are not in and of themselves a matter to be concerned with unless and until inflation becomes a serious threat.

False. The danger from deficits is the interest rate we have to pay on those funds. A high interest rate would create problems, because it would cost so much more to service our debt. One possible solution to a high rate would be to print more money, which would be inflationary. The other responses would be to raise taxes or cut spending.

Since we're currently borrowing at about 2%, it isn't a problem today from an economic perspective, and there is little reason to think the interest rate will shoot up suddenly.

However, it is a political issue. And reducing the deficit via tax increases on the wealthy is good politics, and provides a fantastic contrast with the Republicans.

This is not the fight progressives should be pursuing right now, in my view. It's a waste of time and resources.

When any attempt to pass progressive legislation is met with "how do we pay for it?!?!!?!", you aren't going to get much progressive legislation. So raising taxes enables the progressive agenda you want.