I make no presumptions that Obama’s tax promises will bear any resemblance to future reality. I’m still guffawing over his repeated promise to go over the budget line by line and find money for all the ponies and rainbows he has promised, the ones he’ll need to find 700 billion more bucks for if the bailout passes.

How many middle class people will even notice the extent to which their taxes are affected by tiny tweaks in rates and so on and so forth. Most people, if they even compare from year to year at all, simply compare the bottom line from one year to the next. Even though the relationship between your refund or payment and total amount of taxes paid is pretty variable. Plus, anyone that has a mortgage and itemizes their mortgage interest knows that this number changes every year, which will further obscure any changes.

Of course, he can do what Bush did and send everyone a check. Then send the bill to your grandkids. I bet you could send folks a check for $200 and decrease the standard deduction by the same amount and most people would think they “got a tax cut.”