I have some explaining to do.

When the House passed Charles Rangel's full class war reform the alternative minimum tax by hammering hedge fund managers and private equity partners, I predicted ... well I don't want to check but I was excited.

Now Republicans in the Senate have managed to delay the customary push it back a year patch just so they can blame the Democrats for late tax refunds.

The issue of actual reform has totally vanished. Mainly this is what happens with the Senate, but I suspect that opinion leaders are eager to avoid discussion of tax progressivity as they are rich and corrupt (once typing that would have been anathema to me).

Also Krugman had an experience which supports his view on Obama's proposal to raise the FICA ceiling.

So I just spent a fairly unpleasant 15 minutes on right-wing talk radio. And the host said — this is rough, not a verified quote — “Look, everyone knows that Social Security is going bust, and we’d all be better off if we could put out money in 401(k)s. Even Barack Obama says so!”

All I can say is that ranters will rant and Republicans (and Democrats) will play political tricks at the public expense, but Democrats can fight back if they have good popular policy proposals like Rangel's and Obama's.