Taxes will need to be raised to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent into the future.

Seems like we really will need tax increases to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent. Politicians are doing the political posturing of saying "these things are off the table." It's a dance around the "third rail of politics." Call it the table dance.

Still, demographics and other economic factors point to insolvency of these programs without changes. Tax increases are likely the best solution; such as raising the income cap for Social Security taxes.

Just soaking business with taxes isn't likely to solve the problem as business often does need lots of capital for the buildings and equipment, it uses, to run the business. This would indirectly effect consumers and workers anyway.

Seems like taxes will need to extend into the middle class; especially the upper middle class; many of them have benefited from the windfall profits of home ownership.

Much of upper middle class, as well as the super rich, did benefit from the Trump tax cuts that, for the most part, were ill advised.

Even just raising the income cap on Social Security taxes could increase taxes on folks in the $150,000 to $400,000 yearly income range that Biden tries to promise not to raise taxes on.

As a child, I would have never thought that much of middle class would be millionaires, on paper. This due mostly to inflation in home values. Being a millionaire was a big deal, during my 1960s childhood. Now it's just middle class, or at least upper middle class.

Aside from taxes, middle class is still the bulk of consumers, when it comes to the footprint on our environment. It's a big number of people compared to just the billionaires. The super rich are the biggest consumers, but there aren't huge numbers of them; like there are in the middle classes.

The super rich do have more than their fair share of influence on Congress, however. They set the pace and the rest of society follows. So many folks admire the movie actors and multi million dollar sports stars. A large segment of the people "drink the cool aid."

Big changes are needed and higher taxes are needed. Yes, that may slow down overall consumption, but that could help the environment.

We will need to change our ways and invest in things like cleaner infrastructure. We could have a better, yet less consumptive quality of life.