The "Fiscal Cliff" Debate is Slowly Moving Toward a Debate on How to Raise Taxes

First there is the elitist, Fareed Zakaria and the Catfish, after  a consideration of a number of taxes, appears to settle on "tinkering" with higher income taxes:

I would love to see a carbon tax, and a financial-transactions tax, and a wealth tax — all of them are more attractive than an income tax, and some combination of them would be much better...As I say, I like the idea of a wealth tax. (My proposal: 1% of all wealth over $5 million, each year.) It would diversify the tax base, it would give the rich an incentive to take more risks with their investments, and by definition it would only be paid by people who can afford it. But administering such a thing would be a nightmare, and it’s always best to lower oneself into such waters gently. After all, the IRS has had decades to learn how people avoid income tax; it hasn’t even started to imagine all the different ways they could avoid a wealth tax.  

Income taxes are easy to collect, and for most of us on payroll they’re collected automatically and largely invisibly — by the time we get our paychecks, the taxes have already been paid. We have a smoothly-functioning machine, with tax rates which can be adjusted quite easily. Adding new gears to the machine — a carbon tax, for instance — might make sense in theory, although it’s hard. But dismantling the machine entirely and rebuilding something brand new? That is a very bad idea indeed.

And Lew Rockwell reports:

 On CNBC this morning, Steve Forbes endorsed much higher taxes. As long as marginal tax-rates are not raised, he said, it is fine to abolish "loopholes" and therefore increase the state's take. He actually hailed Reagan's gigantic tax hikes of 1986 as a model.

Bottom line, there is very little talk about government spending cuts and much about how to increase taxes in a sneakily a way as possible. Watch your wallet.