The purpose of this little bandwagon (Santa brought it to me as a Christmas present) is to bring some fiscal sanity into our national, state and local discussions. I've based it on the simple premise that when a government is short of cash it can do one of three things: cut expenses; increase taxes (taxes/fees/charges/[whatever_name_you_like]); or some combination of the two.

I'm fine with the latter proposition. I don't see any way serious way forward otherwise.

Up to today it has been easy to advocate for cutting expenses even at the cost of losing vital or important social programs (yeah -  such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, environmental protections, education). I believe there exists a need to make sure that raising taxes so we can continue with and improve upon any of those mentioned programs will be discussed with the same ease.

And then we need to actually raise taxes.