Democrats have no reason to compromise to solve the fiscal gulch. The fiscal gulch was invented by the Republicans during the past 30 years.

They hate Social Security and Medicare and have since the day those programs became law. But the American people want and need them both, so Republicans came up with the strategy of bankrupting the country by cutting taxes and irresponsible spending (refusing to pay for any of their new programs).

George Bush tried to end Social Security. Paul Ryan proposed, and the House Republicans passed, a budget that did away with Medicare. The Republicans created the debt ceiling crisis, intending to force an end to Social Security and Medicare. Now they want to trade Social Security and Medicare (and ObamaCare) for tax revenue increases — their position all along.

They are offering no compromise. Democrats should accept none.

This is the time to defeat the Republican war on the middle class.

Democrats should accept nothing less than tax rate increases on the rich, at least to the Clinton administration’s marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent; no cuts to Social Security and Medicare, but major efforts to curtail the cost of health care (we pay twice as much and receive half the value of health care systems compared to other people in the industrialized world); elimination of all tax deductions/loopholes for corporations and the rich; cuts to the bloated military; elimination of corporate welfare; and the breakup of the largest banks.

Jonathan Albrecht, Dixfield