SOTU

Just once, I'd like a president to get up on that podium and not pull punches.

"My fellow Americans, we are in deep shit and the yahoos sitting in this room are just making things worse. I understand that you're worried about how you're going to buy that third car or pay for junior's college or feed the baby, but all this panic about turning socialist and the rising debt and multimillionaires having their taxes increased is kinda insane.
It took us 30 years of irresponsible financial practices to get us to this point. It's gonna take more than 16 months to get us out. I know we're a nation built on instant gratification, but you're just gonna have to hold out for this one. This fix isn't something you can get in the drive-thru.
First and foremost, people, think about these facts:

The top 20 percent of taxpayers realized nearly three quarters of all income gains from 1979 to 2000.
When it comes to real social mobility, surveys find less in the United States than in much of Europe. France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Canada, and Australia are all places where your chances of rising from the bottom are better than they are in the United States.
Income disparity in this country is growing and that should alarm everyone (including those who have the income).
According to the Central Intelligence Agency, income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States.

Sit down and think about that. All of you. Your chances of doing better than your parents are markedly LOWER than theirs were. And your children are likely to do worse than you and that has nothing to do with the National Debt. Things are rough right now, but there is NO scientific evidence that raising taxes on the top 10% of wage-earners in this country will do any harm to the economy at all. On the contrary, we could use the cash. I know you all recoil at the idea of raising taxes because in your imagination, one day YOU will be in that top tax-bracket and you don't want to spoil it for yourself when you get there. Two things: One, the likelihood of you making it that high if you're not already there is less than getting trampled by an elephant in New York City. And two, if you are making over $350,000 a year, you can afford to toss a little more cash to the country that helped allow that to happen."