Be willing to accept the tradeoffs that taxing the wealthy brings down to the middle class consumer.

Raising taxes on wealthy people is often a good idea, but lots of people fear that it will slow the economy. To be totally honest, it can slow the economy and hurt business.

On the other hand, adequately funding things like infrastructure, education and research can bring long term benefits to the economy. It's a case of short term pain for long term gain. This could be better explained and better understood by the public.

Some things, people value, might become less well financed; like pro sports and big budget movies. Another example is more expensive gasoline as taxes on oil producers get passed on to consumers. In exchange for this, we can get things like more public transit.

We can't "have it all." Lots of things, in life, are tradeoffs.

Even if the economy changes, other qualities of life can still improve. What we value and aspire toward can change.