Friday, October 17, 2008

Welfare As "Tax Cuts"

clipped from www.spectator.org
HEMPSTEAD. N.Y. -- "We are going to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans,"
Barack Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, said in the spin room here at
Hofstra University following the final debate of the 2008 presidential
election.

Plouffe was repeating one of the boldest claims made by the
Obama campaign. It's a claim that the Wall Street Journal editorial
board href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122385651698727257.html">dubbed
"Obama's 95% Illusion," noting that more than a third of Americans don't pay any
income taxes, and that what Obama's plan does do is offer a raft of subsidies
and government payments to individuals and families that he redefines as "tax
cuts." His proposal looks more like a redistribution scheme than an honest
effort to reduce taxes -- as he href="http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/13/obama-plumber-plan-spread-wealth/">revealed
on Monday when he told a now famous Ohio plumber that his plan aimed to "spread
the wealth around."
If Barack Obama can effectively claim that his plan cuts taxes on 95 percent of
Americans, then the term "tax cut" has no meaning.