Another issue that was just explained to THIS dummy was why the GOP is so dead against a 3% raise in the tax rate for the wealthy. A tax RATE increase is like set in stone, while playing around with deductions is set in sand. I am also seeing a lot of reasonable people OUTSIDE congressional Republicans saying that raising capital gains from 15% all the way up to 28% will raise revenues quite a bit with the least amount of hurt. I have long contended that all revenues should come from UNEARNED INCOME rather than sweat.