Get rid of the giant bloated military machine

OR

Get rid of the idea that the government serves the American people
which, certainly simplifies the Preamble of the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

... I'm afraid I know which option is already the reality. I wonder if they will belatedly inform the people.

We need a NATION WIDE STRIKE for Real healthcare reform

Clearly, the New York Times, and most other media outlets, has a conflict of interest. This is a large scale problem. Typically, when there is a conflict of interest in some institution, what happens is that some other entity, above the institution in question, tries to get a more objective opinion by getting somebody outside the institution to examine and rule on the situation. Unfortunately, right now THERE IS NO OUTSIDE place where such somebody can be found. Who would that be? Somebody in China? The vast majority of mid- and high-level politicians in the US are relatively rich. The same holds for academics at prominent Universities. Once you got the dough, certainly you don't want to give it up. A tax hike on income above 1M makes complete sense, it would be the socially responsible thing to do, yet it is not discussed anywhere. As S-P says, 70% or more would make sense, especially given the accumulation of wealth over the last decade. What to do?

There seems to be a serious disconnect between the front page and the editorial page. One brings up the "scary" debt numbers and the other goes after Goldman Sachs for its greed. It is somewhat sad that the NYT has been reduced to house propaganda for the corporate and wealthy gangsters.

is grow out of the debt. The additional debt capacity the US can take on at a 3% annual GDP growth rate is $2.5 trillion. And that is assuming 5% 30-year treasury.

Spending trends will be well below that. The stores of wealth are vast, though US will never need to tap into them.

that we are even having this conversation. Seemed like in 2005 such a discussion would never had occurred, or the one proposing such tax hikes would have been immediately mocked.

The NYT or WSJ might not be willing to go there (for the obvious reasons mentioned), but then again their ability to influence is waning for that very reason. This fight can be won, but honestly the first step will be just letting the Bush tax scheme sunset in 2010 - they will push hard for pieces to be renewed. If that goes down in flames, we can start to talk about progressive tax hikes.

As they say: America always does the right thing, just after we've tried everything else.

This is too broad a brush you're painting, Sean Paul. I don't see the NYT as a pack of running dogs. I see it as a big paper full of contradictions, one of three national papers left. The others are the WSJ and USAToday, who also hold contradictions.

I heartily support higher taxes on the rich, both at the federal level and at the state level. Here in Seattle, we have a pile of Microsoft millionaires that never paid any state income taxes, and we have the traffic congestion to prove it.

Tom Robinson