To hear some pundits tell it, the Lame Duck budget battle is about the "unsustainable federal deficit," or "entitlement reform," or even "tax rates." These characterizations make it sound like a contest between two competing sets of policies and programs.

But underlying all of the policy-speak, the Lame Duck budget battle is really about one question. Will the 1% of Americans who had the party that caused the deficit be asked to pay the bill?

The pain of "fixing" the deficit should not be distributed widely. It should be distributed fairly - to the people who caused the problem and reaped the benefit - the wealthiest people in America.

The Lame Duck battle goes right to the most important question facing our political and economic decision-makers at this moment in American history: will we continue to allow the wealthiest 1% of Americans to siphon off all of our economic growth for themselves, or will the benefits of that growth be widely spread to ordinary Americans? What portion of the goods and services produced by our society will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans - and how much goes to everyone else?