The deficit and taxes. Those will be the key issues in 2012. (If it turns out to be something else, we’ll be in bigger trouble than we are now.)

It became official the moment President Obama announced that he’ll be releasing a deficit reduction/tax increase plan, on the heels of Republican congressman Paul Ryan’s. The President’s people clearly realize the issue has become unavoidable. America is looking at an existential debt crisis a decade or two out, and we can no longer avoid addressing it.

This can’t be the conversation President Obama wanted to have.  He is a government interventionist – he sees government as  a force for good – and talk of drastically paring it is not in his wheelhouse.  But taxes are.  And that’s where we can expect the President and his party to focus.  They will seek to drive a wedge between the “wealthy” and the “middle class.”  (Republicans will focus on spending and corporate tax cuts to spur long-term job growth.)

It is the most familiar argument in America. The Democrats will say the “wealthy” don’t pay their fair share.  Republicans will argue they do – and that money in the hands of individuals is better invested than money in the hands of bureaucrats.  The difference this time, though, will be the inclusion of questions about Medicare and Social Security. Will Americans be willing to sacrifice benefits and work a few extra years to help save their country?  That is certain to ratched up passion over this quadrennial debate.

Here we go again. Ginned up class war.  Just like last time…and the time before that.