Obama needs to cut his Wall Street tag

Today's column by EJ Dionne makes some excellent points:

Some keep pushing the tired notion that the deficits can be cured if we just reduce "entitlements," which I put in quotation marks because I'm weary of people using this highfalutin word to dodge saying directly that they want deep cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

Actually, health-care reform is designed in part to contain the long-term growth of Medicare costs. And the savings that can be wrung out of Social Security are limited. In the end, if you care about fiscal responsibility, you have to favor raising taxes.

But whose taxes? The truth is that we've had a large income and wealth shift in the United States, in favor of not just the rich in general but the financial sector in particular. We are overtaxing wage and salary income relative to investment income, and overtaxing the manufacturing and service sectors relative to the financial industry. It's why Warren Buffett has said that he's taxed at a lower rate than his receptionist.