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.