Charles Pierce’s recommendation to Democrats and the Obama administration:

No compromise involving [Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid]. We will get to them later, when everybody stops being so panicked and stupid about everything. No more demonstrations of good faith to soothe the feelings of the people who got their asses kicked all over the country in the last election. The president’s proposal on the Bush tax cuts. A rise in the top rate to 40 percent, just because you raised so goddamn much phony hell about going back to the Clinton-era rates. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, the president will be appearing in your congressional district very soon to explain what you’ve been up to. Compromise can be a good thing. It can be a bad thing. It can never be a goal in and of itself. Power, freely dispensed through a free election, has to count for something, too.

I’d say crank to highest marginal rate up significantly higher than 40% but otherwise I concur.  (This covers the reasons why I think a much higher top marginal rate is appropriate.)