Obama v McStain: Taxes and the Company they Keep

With Ralph Reed currently on Washington Journal, touting the GOP’s, and thus McLame’s, stance that raising taxes on the rich would hurt the middle class, among other issues (abortion!), we must note, most voiciferously, how wrong they are. To do that, I turn to Krugman’s column for help.

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies. Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them, says that means raising taxes on the middle class.

So, how do the tax policies translate down to the people?

Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts — the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains — and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.

According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing’s for sure: Mr. Obama isn’t planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition — even that of the Bush administration.

But, Krugman goes on. The “rich” counter some of these taxes with other tax credits and cuts Bush put in place and Obama wants to keep.

And when the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at the report, it made an interesting catch. It turns out that Treasury’s hypothetical families got all their gains from the so-called middle-class provisions of the Bush tax cuts: the Child Tax Credit, the reduced tax bracket for lower incomes and marriage penalty relief.

So, in the long run, Obama’s tax policy would benefit the most people, including the rich.

Meanwhile, MsStain’s campaign is going after Obama for his “ties” to Rezko and a 527 group is going after Obama for “ties” to Ayers. Forget the FACT that McLame was part of the Keating 5. Forget the FACT that Phil Gramm, still, as far as we know, slated to be the Treasury Secretary under a McSame prsidency, was the architect of the Housing Crisis. Forget the fact that McBlame has his own ties to a convicted felon, G. Gordon LIddy.

So, it seems that the dems would have the easier response to GOP presumed nominee’s links to criminality. And the GOP damn well better expect to be judged by the company they keep and the acts against the people they have perpetrated.

The fact is, I don’t think anyone, especially those in politics, can keep themselves completely clean from knowing criminals of various forms. But, only one of the nominees has perpetrated criminal behavior, and embraced (including regularly accepting donations) a criminal, and wishes to put another criminal in a cabinet position, and that person is McCain.