My2K and the Fiscal Cliff: Like We Need Another Gimmick

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The White House is apparently promoting a hashtag on Twitter: #My2K. I assume that means the government is paying for the publicity it will receive on the social network to push its agenda.

Or maybe it will merely leverage the instant word of mouth it has the power to produce. One strategy is slightly "less bad" than the other.

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment -- if the Bush tax cuts expire, President Obama claims the average middle-class family will pay about $2,200 more in taxes. That's not a good thing. So, he wants to "protect" tax breaks for those making less than $250,000 a year, while hitting folks above that level quite a bit harder, particularly investors and the self-employed.

I can see both sides of the coin. Warren Buffett makes a lot of sense. So do other millionaires and billionaires who say they actually want to be/should be taxed at higher rates. At the same time, I catch the drift of the trickle-down economics folks, even though that way of being has never really worked out all that well.

But set the political debate aside. Your perspective, your circumstances and your experiences dictate your position. Most of us can take any of these arguments and argue them effectively.

There's no right or wrong when you're talking about the impact of taxes on economies and individual success. It's far too complicated of an issue to come down to a dichotomy.

It bugs me the White House is using a gimmick. A play on words. Or a play on past unfounded fears if you will to drum up support for its stance. Do we really need another gimmick?

It's one thing for CNBC to go hardcore with its "Rise Above" promotion. I can get with that. It's about time a media organization stepped out and attempted to influence the conversation and it's doing great work over there.

But it can access theatre of the mind. It can devise fancy slogans. It's CNBC's job to drive ratings and, subsequently, advertising dollars. CNBC does not work for the American people. It has one and only one obligation -- to inform people while entertaining them. That's what successful and engaging media does.

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