The bottom line

McCain’s tax plans are good for the prosperous, the wealthy, and the filthy rich.
Obama’s tax plans are good for the other 80%.

McCain’s tax plan helps the top quintile of the income distribution, and really helps the top one percent and tenth of a percent. Obama’s plan is better for the the other 80% of the population.

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From the Tax Policy Center:

If enacted, the Obama and McCain tax plans would have radically different effects on the distribution of tax burdens in the United States. The Obama tax plan would make the tax system significantly more progressive by providing large tax breaks to those at the bottom of the income scale and raising taxes significantly on upper-income earners. The McCain tax plan would make the tax system more regressive, even compared with a system in which the 2001—06 tax cuts are made permanent.

Not to mention that McCain’s proposal is $1.3 trillion further out of balance over eight years, not even counting the cost of a semi-permanent presence in Iraq, which McCain supports but hasn’t budgeted for.

Just remember this when you hear about “inexperience” and voting “present” and “bitter” and Rev. Wright and William Ayers and Rezko and Michelle Obama and “Muslim” and “Hamas” and all the other crap the right wing is going to throw at Barack Obama: for them, this election is about whether the federal government keeps waging class warfare on behalf of the prosperous, the wealthy, and the filthy rich against the bottom four-fifths of the country. They’re for it. Obama is against it.

h/t TaxProfBlog

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com