Taxes

Ezra Klein has a good summation of the candidates’ tax policy. I think this is always worth looking at, and this one is especially worth checking out because it comes with a handy graph! We all love graphs, right? So, go over and check that out. What he’s basically pointing out is that, while McCain will lower taxes across all the brackets, the vast, vast majority of those tax cuts are saved for the top bracket. McCain will dump buckets of money over the head of eagerly waiting millionaires.

Obama, on the other hand, will lower taxes on everyone except the top bracket – and by substantially more than McCain, especially for the first three brackets. So, basically, when it comes down to it, unless you know where to buy spats and monocles, Obama is the guy you want setting tax policy. I really don’t understand why this hasn’t gotten any more play. Oh, perhaps it’s because of things like this, a clip from CBS News’ “Where They Stand” segment. The segment takes three families in Ohio and explains what would happen to them under both Obama and McCain’s tax plan. Only, for the family making the most ($214,000 a year), instead of telling them what would happen under Obama (no change), they decide to explain what would happen if, instead of being this family, they were another, different family making more money (their taxes would go up!). What is the point of having three families to illustrate your point if you simply say, “But if they were different, you’d get different results”? It’s balancetastic.