Americans overwhelmingly believe President Obama has the right to raise taxes on the GOP protected class.

This should add more fuel to the fire for Obama to force this issue with Republicans. Boehner’s bizarre attempt to show compromise yesterday, by digging in his heels for permanent tax cuts for the top 2%, is so far from what anyone outside of that little group wants.

More on the NBC News/WSJ Poll via CNBC:

By 65 percent to 28 percent, respondents to the survey preferred that political leaders compromise to reach a deal—even if that means tax increases and cuts in Social Security and Medicare—rather than stick to their positions and allow across the board tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1. The telephone survey of 1,000 adults, conducted Dec. 6-9, carries a margin for error of 3.1 percentage points. But on the specific measures that might be part of a compromise, public opinion favors Obama’s views. Fully 68 percent said Obama “has a mandate” from the November election to cut taxes on families earning less than $250,000 per year; 65 percent said he has a mandate for “increasing taxes on the wealthy and reducing federal spending.” Some 59 percent said Obama has a mandate to eliminate the Bush tax cuts on incomes above $250,000. And an overwhelming 76 percent said that higher tax rates on incomes that high would be an “acceptable” element of a compromise to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Americans are also saying that they want “compromise,” though so far, no solid majority can point to any specific areas where they want the budget cut. We also know that austerity is not the way, as it’s crashing the UK and European economies. The one point most can agree on though, is that taxes must go up for the Republican protected class.

I’m certainly not clear on why we need “entitlement” cuts since the budget problems have everything to do with Bush’s lies about the tax cuts not adding to the deficit and the wars being necessary and quick, so someone is going to have to help me out. Instead of people repeating this idiotic “we want compromise” they need to be very specific and say what they want cut.

The economy is still soft thanks to Bush’s lies, and it won’t be strong for years. Cutting “entitlements” won’t do anything to help, and it will only hurt those who need it due to tax cuts for the rich and unnecessary wars.