Hopefully Obama will have the political courage to break his campaign promise of "no tax hikes for people making less than $250K", or whatever the number was. It was pretty questionable at the time, but as highlighted by the two posts it is flat-out ludicrous today. Stubborness in the face of facts was one of Bush's biggest downfalls, hopefully it won't be Obama's as well.

On a side note, here's my two cents. Eliminate the national income tax, institute a national sales tax or VAT, implement tax refunds to make it as progressive as you want, slash the IRS' annual budget by 80% with new simple tax code, then legalize all vices (mainly drugs, prostitution & gambling) with incremental vice taxes. It probably won't fix the whole fiscal mess, but I bet it would put a big dent into it.