As an outside observer, I am convinced that the U.S. government is obliged to "raise" taxes, especially on the rich. This is not to say, as a blanket argument, that it is always better for any government to raise taxes. It all depends upon a case-by-case analysis. In the case of the U.S., the widening gap between rich and poor and the failure of health care system are damaging social integration and even threatening the lives of so many Americans.

Any international comparison reveals America is utterly failing in narrowing the rich-and-poor gap. Of course, if you raise taxes too much, then the economy may run the risk of losing steam, and falling into a recession or stagflation due to ever-decreasing disposable income.

But that should not be the case for America, which is notorious for its lowest tax rates amongst major developed economies. All the U.S. government should be concerned about is that the tax rate should not be raised abruptly. It should be done gradually and carefully every step of the way.

As long as you are balanced enough to keep in mind the cautionary tale of the "Swedish type of too much tax, depressing their own economy at the end of half a century", you can find an optimal level of taxes on the rich and on the middle class.

Given the size, economic might and the rapid rise of China, the nuclear/terrorist threats from roguish evil nations such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and others, and the shocking gap between rich and poor, tens of millions of the latter of whom do not even have any health care coverage as in any failed state in Africa, America has no other choice but to raise taxes on the rich and the upper middle class as well.

This observation is so commonsensical that very few world citizens would dare to rebut it except for American republicans. Whenever they speak for lower taxes, I am always reminded of a word, "Dogma". Those communists besieged by Marxist dogma literally self-destroyed the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

What is happening in American politics seems to be exactly the same in nature as what those communist countries had committed in and around 1989. Extremism can, from time to time, prevail on both ends of the ideological spectrum. American Republicanism in its economic sense has gone to the other end of extreme. American conservatives only do not know they have fallen a victim to "Too much pride from past successes, leading to a petrified dogma, destined to be dealt a final blow to its most potent pride" phenomenon.

If you are happy with the scenario of China forcefully and condescendingly waking the U.S. up to the harsh realities in a matter of twenty years or so, you can go on without major structural changes in American system. (I think brief successes of neo-liberalism in the 90s and early 2000s have inflated your ego too much.) But if you are not, try to diligently learn from German or any other better performing economy, all of which are regarded to have been much better role models as a developed economy for the rest of the world.