More on "Redistribution"

Another important article from the Wall Street Journal:

Obama's 95% Illusion
It depends on what the meaning of 'tax cut' is.

The gist of the piece is that under the Obama plan, as much as 44% of the population would pay no taxes and most of those would receive checks from the government (meaning taxpayers).

Then there is the question of what is a "tax cut."

For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase "tax credit."

...

[Most of these] would be "refundable," which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer -- a federal check -- from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant." Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.

And most of those handouts are phased out as you earn more or are not given to everyone. (No kids? Oops, no child support tax credit for you. No one going to college in your household? Then I guess you won't get that tuition tax credit. You say you don't have a mortgage? Sorry you don't get that credit either.)

There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year.

Go read the entire article for the facts of this most dangerous attempt to buy votes. And that is all these tax credits and redistributions are a cold, calculated means to place more and more individuals on the public teat and, therefore, under the politicians' thumbs.

I find the scariest part of the entire article the figure that says 44% of the population will not pay any taxes. To me that means they have no stake in what the government spends it's money on--except as it is funneled back to them. And yet they get to vote. Vote for their self interest and not the nations. In fact, the nation can go to hell as far as many of them are concerned so long as they continue to get their hand out from the federal redistribution center called the IRS.

Then there's the McCain ad: