Barack Obama makes no sense on economics:

The big television networks take a lot of abuse for their supposed left-wing slant, but for a few moments in yesterday’s presidential debate on ABC News, anchorman Charles Gibson sounded like a charter member of the Club for Growth or Americans for Tax Reform. It came when Mr. Gibson questioned Senator Obama about the capital gains tax. Mr. Gibson quoted Mr. Obama as talking about raising the tax to 28% from 15%. “But actually, Bill Clinton, in 1997, signed legislation that dropped the capital gains tax to 20 percent,” Mr. Gibson said. “And George Bush has taken it down to 15 percent. And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?”

Why, Robert Bartley couldn’t have put it better himself. Mr. Obama was totally flummoxed, betraying a fundamental lack of understanding of the Laffer Curve. The Democrat of Illinois spoke of the need to “finance health care for Americans who currently don't have it,” and of the need to “invest in our infrastructure” and in “our schools.”

Mr. Gibson, to his credit, wouldn’t let the point go. “But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up,” he replied to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama replied by changing the subject, to “a housing crisis that this president has not been attentive to.”

So Obama is willing to raise a tax in a manner that will force the treasury to forego revenue, all for... what?

"...what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year -- $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That's not fair."

The American Thinker rips this idiocy apart:

...with that statement, Obama betrayed first his intellectual dishonesty, then his economic idiocy. The candidate is well aware that his hypothetical hedge fund manager pays a much higher rate on wages than does his supposed secretary. And that they both pay the same rate on capital gains - yes Senator, millions of Americans of varying income, including secretaries, own stock.

Accepting the low tax / higher revenue premise by virtue of his silence, he argued that his own Marxist measure of "fairness" somehow trumps fiscal efficacy.

In the interests of "fairness," Barack Obama would raise taxes in a manner that would reduce revenue to the treasury. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Tell me again why anyone is taking this guy seriously? Oh yeah, it's the hope and change.

Riiiiight.

50-50 nation:

Tuesday is the deadline for filing federal income taxes. Half of American taxpayers will pay 97 percent of the individual income taxes the government will collect for 2008, according to IRS data. The other half will pay little or nothing, yet receive billions in benefits in the form of cash, subsidies, “free” services and other benefits and loans.

There are indeed “Two Americas,” but the two aren’t the rich and poor, but taxpayers and tax consumers. It’s going to get even tougher for the taxpayers in the near future, thanks to legislation being readied by Democrats who control Congress.

This is bad stuff.

Dissecting Leftism notes this interesting passage in an editorial from Investors Business Daily:

We're so used to Democrats pushing tax hikes as the answer to all of America's problems that we were taken aback to find the following words buried in Pelosi's release on the stimulus deal: "Economists estimate that each dollar of broad tax cuts leads to $1.26 in economic growth."

Gee, that sort of sounds familiar. It's almost, though not quite, like what the much-reviled supply-side economists have been saying for, oh, 30 years or so.

Pelosi, and other Democrats now suddenly touting tax cuts, may be on to something. We might demur on the notion that all tax cuts must be "broad" to be effective. Evidence really lies more strongly with giving tax cuts to those who would start new businesses or expand old ones. But it's refreshing to hear a Democrat admit the obvious — that tax cuts work.

Also noted - this wonderful encapsulation of the whole stupid business:

"It's like taking a bucket of water from the deep end of a pool and dumping it into the shallow end. Funny thing -- the water in the shallow end doesn't get any deeper."

That's how George Mason University economist Russell Roberts describes the logic -- rather, illogic -- of the economic "stimulus" proposals that everyone and his uncle are proposing.

In the end, sure - I'll take my money back from the idiots in Washington. It's just too bad that they take it in the first place to do moronic things like this "economic stimulus package."

Since Fred dropped out of the race, I've moved over to the Romney camp. I'm not thrilled at all with the choices available to us this year in the presidential race, Mitt included, but at least he's better than McCain, who has conservatives wary because of stuff like this:

"Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?" one lawyer commented. McCain replied, "Well, certainly Roberts." Jaws were described as dropping. My sources cannot remember exactly what McCain said next, but their recollection is that he described Alito as too conservative.

Meanwhile, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is worried because a prominent journalist informed him that a few years ago McCain said to him, off the record, that as president he would have to raise taxes. More recently McCain has told me, on the record, that he would never support a tax increase and, consequently, favors making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

This election is going to be a massive mess no matter who wins, I fear...

There is, of course, a big debate going on in DC right now about an "economic stimulus" package that will supposedly include a bunch of rebate checks for all of us poor lil' taxpayers out here that we will then turn around and spend, thus stimulating the economy. And naturally, there is now a major bare-knuckle brawl over who exactly will be eligible to receive a "rebate":

Bush’s tax cuts means that no taxes are paid by, in Hillary’s words, “the 50 million Americans who most need an economic shot in the arm.”...

...Actually, not only did the Bush tax cuts shift the burden of taxation from the poor to the rich, but President Bush pushed 50 million working Americans off the federal income tax rolls entirely.

That’s double the number of workers who paid no federal income tax at the end of her husband’s term.

And under Bush, the child tax credit doubled, meaning millions of Americans pay a negative income tax.

How do I know this? From the anti-Bush rhetoric from Mrs. Clinton this weekend. Although the details of the stimulus package have not been made public, Bush apparently cut a deal. His tax cuts will be made permanent in exchange for a tax rebate.

But that will be an income tax rebate.

But 50 million Americans pay no income taxes. A few of them are in the upper half of workers, I suppose, but the alternative minimum tax is supposed to catch them.

Most are in the bottom half of earners.

Which explains the weekend demagoguery by Mrs. Clinton.

“For the White House to propose spending over $100 billion to jumpstart the economy, while shortchanging assistance to the 50 million families who are struggling the most and are most likely to inject those funds into the economy makes no sense,” she said in a press release. “The Bush approach would fail to fully help the millions of lower income senior citizens who live on fixed incomes and are under enormous financial stress. And it would disproportionately leave out African American and Hispanic families who have, on average, lower incomes than white families.”

The reason [they] get no rebate is they pay no federal income taxes.

Emphasis mine. Remember, if you don't pay taxes, you don't get a "rebate" check from the government. You get welfare. Or, put another way, you get a bribe. It is, after all, an election year.