Do Tax Cuts Give Away Your Money?

One of the things that makes Ezra Klein such an effective liberal advocate is that he’s policy-smart and spin-smart. In other words: He knows what he’s talking about and how to shape effective messages using what he knows. So he can dive into wonk shop-talk on one hand and deploy with tough rhetorical maneuvers on the other without missing a beat.

So, take this post for example, titled, "Chart of the day: ‘John McCain wants to give all your money to rich people’ edition." He then shows us a chart from our lefty friends at the Center for American Progress showing the distribution of McCain’s proposed tax cuts. By a pretty large margin, those cuts go toward the the top quintile.

Giving all your money to rich people is certainly a savvy way to put it, if you’re a liberal anyway. But I’m not sure it’s quite honest. The assumption is that the money was yours, ours, Ezra’s, the Center for American Progress’s — anyone but the original earner’s — to begin with. But that’s simply not the case.

Instead, what I’d say is that those tax cuts would do is let all people keep more of their money. Successful people will, of course, tend to be able to keep more simply because they have more to keep. But when the top 10% of earners pays 70% of income taxes, that’s probably not all that surprising.

I think Ezra’s on to something when he notes that McCain’s anti-earmark crusades — much as I think they’re a good thing — aren’t enough to squelch federal spending. I’d certainly like to see him propose greater, more far-reaching cuts in spending, though I understand the political rationale for choosing not to. Tax cuts and earmarks, on the other hand, are issues that a smart politician can and should lead with, and good, politically possible ways to move the limited government agenda forward.