Seventy-three percent support raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year, 78 percent oppose cutting Medicare, 71 percent oppose cutting Medicaid, and 76 percent oppose cutting Social Security.
The Republican approach is the opposite. They want to cut Medicare, they want to cut Medicaid, they want to cut Social Security, and they certainly do not want to ask the wealthiest people in this country to pay a nickel more in taxes.
That is one poll. Let's look at another poll. In fact, poll after poll has more or less mirrored what New Hampshire voters are saying.
A recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found the following: 81 percent of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable -- that is how they frame these polls -- to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit. Let me repeat that. Eighty-one percent of the American people -- in the Wall Street Journal-NBC poll -- think it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to impose a surtax on millionaires to reduce the deficit.
Eighty-one percent of the American people think it is a good idea. Yet we cannot get one Republican to ask the wealthy to pay a nickel more in taxes. Talk about being out of touch with what the American people want.
Seventy four-percent -- in that same poll -- of the American people believe it is totally acceptable or mostly acceptable to eliminate tax credits for the oil and gas industry, and on and on it goes.
Seventy-six percent believe it is totally unacceptable or mostly unacceptable to cut Medicare to significantly reduce the deficit.
Here is an interesting poll that maybe some of my Republican friends want to pay attention to; that is, that while the leaders of the tea party here in Washington are fighting to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid, it turns out that in another poll done by McClatchy, 70 percent of those people who identify themselves with the tea party oppose cutting Medicare and Medicaid to reduce the deficit. That is the tea party.
Here is the last poll I wish to highlight. There are many more out there. It was done by the Washington Post and ABC News. Here is what that poll says. It says 72 percent of Americans support rising taxes on incomes over $250,000 to reduce the national debt, including 91 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Independents, and 54 percent of Republicans.
So here you have in Congress, surrounded by lobbyists and powerful special interests, a Congress heavily dominated by large campaign contributors, of Members of the Senate moving in exactly the opposite direction of where the American people want to go. The American people want shared sacrifice. The American people believe that when the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider, yes, the wealthiest people have to contribute to deficit reduction.
The American people believe we have corporations making record-breaking profits and not paying a nickel in taxes. Yes, they have to start paying taxes. The American people overwhelmingly believe it is bad for this country to go after Medicare and Medicaid and programs that working families desperately depend upon.
Instead of listening to millionaires and billionaires, it is time for our leaders in Washington to start listening to the overwhelming majority of the American people who do want the wealthiest people in this country and the most profitable corporations to contribute to deficit reduction. It is time for shared sacrifice.
The middle class, the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor have already sacrificed enough. It is time for those people on top, the people who are doing extremely well, to also understand they are Americans, they are part of our country, and they have to contribute to deficit reduction. The fact is, moving toward deficit reduction in a way that is fair is not as complicated as some would have us believe. In fact, if you are not beholden to Wall Street, large corporations and wealthy campaign contributors and you are not frightened about the number of 30-second ads that may be thrown at you if you take these guys on, it is quite easy.
I know there are many people out there of good faith who have different ideas about how we can move forward toward a balanced budget, toward deficit reduction. I am not saying I have all the answers. But let me just give you a few examples, a few examples as to how we can reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, and that includes, of course, asking the wealthy and large corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes and does not do undue harm for ordinary Americans.
We can do it. We can do it. If you are concerned about deficit reduction, I am concerned about deficit reduction. But we can do it, calling for shared sacrifice and in a way that does not attack programs that millions and millions of children, elderly, and working families are terribly dependent upon.
Let me just give you a few ideas. I know other people have other good ideas. First, we simply repeal the Bush tax breaks for the top 2 percent. We can raise at least $700 billion over the next decade. That is it. The rich are getting richer. Bush gave them huge tax breaks. You repeal that, $700 billion.
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