The frame that is being shaped is quite troubling: workers’ pensions, particularly public employees, must be cut because of the financial woes of state and local governments; we cannot enact national health care because the government is facing large deficits; and you can forget about great investments in "green" energy because we’re scraping the barrel to pay for Paulson’s bailout for bankers.

  This is a lie–if we are willing to go where the money is. The top one percent hoard a quarter of our national income. If you want to hold on to one truthful comparison to the Great Depression, the last time it was that high was in 1928 (23.9)—just as the Great Depression was about to hit with its full fury.

  We can raise $350 billion with very little effort–and a whole lot more if we choose. Here is how we do it:

As part of a larger project I’ve been working on (to be released–hopefully–in the next week or so), I sketched out, with the help of Citizens for Tax Justice, the premier non-partisan organization focusing exclusively on tax issues, an alternative tax structure: raise the top income tax rates to 40 percent and 45 percent (the top rate is now 35 percent for married taxable income above $351,000), add a top rate of 50 percent for those people with taxable income higher than $1 million and—-this is crucial—-tax investment income as ordinary income (the proposal also assumes that Congress will fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which costs the Treasury money–I’m going to accept the idea, for a moment, that the AMT is here to stay).

  From this plan, we would realize an additional $211 billion in net revenues, with 91 percent of those revenues coming from the richest one percent of Americans (and, the above model should be adjusted to eliminate tax reductions for the higher income earners).

  Frankly, the above is a relatively modest proposal, given simply as a taste of reality. We could—-and should–easily raise the two new suggested top rates higher, with the top rate for the richest 1 percent set at least at 50 percent. From 1951-1964, the post-war era, which America’s leaders and pundits like to point to as the beginning of a great boom and growth in the country, the top rate was 91% for married couples making $200,000 and up.

  The other $150 billion a year comes from a very tiny "thank you for playing" fee on Wall Street stock transactions. Tiny means 0.25 percent. Something so tiny that the small investor wouldn’t even notice it. The lion’s share of the income would come from the big traders and speculators who moves millions of shares a day in an attempt to jump on any gyration in the market.

  These traders benefit from government protections, not the least of which is a regulatory system (oh, there you go again, using that "regulation" word, which now seems to be back in vogue) that prevents, in theory, fraud and crazy speculation (ok, so that doesn’t always work out well all the time). Plus, such a tax might also exercise some restraint, perhaps modest, on the wild and crazy big trades made on rumors and the thirst for a quick buck.

 But, the main point is shared responsibility: You live in this society and, so, you make a contribution. And that contribution is relatively modest and relatively painless.

  Increasing the tax rates for the richest people in society is not an economic challenge. It is a political challenge: that is, there is no credible economic evidence that shows that higher tax rates—-at least, those suggested here—-will have a negative effect.

  In fact, the opposite is true: taxing the richest individuals in the country will be a boon to all if we are giving the government revenue to create a national health care plan (which will reduce the burden on individual and businesses) and the ability to invest in a massive infrastructure program (which will create millions of new jobs, inject a large amount of new capital into the economy and be a huge boost in earning power for individuals).

  The fact is that there is enough money to fund public pensions IF we returned to a more progressive taxation system. If, for example, New York State went back to the tax system it had in the 1970s, 95 percent of the people would see their taxes lowered and five percent–the richest people in the state–would have their taxes go modestly up–and New York would have an additional $9 billion in revenues.

  We have to begin repeating this frame far and wide before the Market Fundamentalists are successful at screwing down their own frame that we out of money.