The rats have targeted the rich. They want to raise marginal rates, dividend rates, capital gain rates, and lift the cap on social security taxes. These tax increases will be counter productive for several reasons: actions to avoid taxation through less work, new entitlement programs to use the additional taxation, capital outflows to avoid taxation, and less investment for economic growth.
There is no social contract, only an entitlement mentality. The rats want a huge expansion of entitlements. Republicans will barely issue any protests. The public thinks entitlements are a free lunch: take from the rich and distribute to the masses.
The eventual impact of the entitlement time bomb is diffiuclt to predict. I see the current economic situation as a precursor to much worse times later. I would prefer optimism but realistically I see hard times.
The question is what will the mass of people dependent on the government do when the freebies are no longer there?
schu