Alan Stewart Carl, a moderate blogger and undecided voter, writes: “Writing for the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn reminds us what happened the last time a Democrat presidential candidate promised to cut middle-class taxes. That?s right, Bill Cl…

Over the past half-century it’s crystal clear that both the democrats and the republicans have DEMONSTRATED that they feel no compulsion to let their spending be controlled by the level of government revenue. Reduced government refenue? NO problem. We’ll just borrow more money, issue more bonds.

IMO, the only way to actually change this is to do a better and more vigilant job of electing congresscritters willing to constrain spending based on revenue projections. This issue is obviously beyond the scope of who is President.

You really haven’t been paying much attention lately, have you?

http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/

Either someone (Soros or the Sandlers) threatened to sue or NBC proactively decided to remove for…other reasons?

But I’m not innumerate. I can actually do math. I understand it. In fact I edit it for a living. So I know that there are simply far too many middle class folks in comparison to those in the upper income echelons for Obama or anyone else to enact a “middle class” tax cut that would make any substantive difference.

Like it or not, personal incomes stack in a pyramid. There are lots and lots and lots of folks working hourly wage jobs making $8, $11, $15, $22 per hour. All those folks make about $40k or less annually. Then there are far fewer folks making 60, even fewer making 80, fewer making 100, and so on and so on.

I hope the next President is smarter than to think that the 21st century challenges for America can be met or substantively impacted by further changes in tax policy. Decades ago, tax rates on wealthy earners were too high, and reducing then really did lead to beneficial economic effects. The low-hanging fruit has mostly been picked now.

Maybe some of the more liberal folks out there really are eager to restore the pre-Kennedy era top bracket rate of 70%. If that happens, there wil be too surprises. One, it won’t generate enough money for a very substantial concurrent cut for “middle class” Americans. Not unless you exclude a bunch of folks who think they are middle class even though their income is 10, 20, or 30k above the median. And two, it won’t have a very salutory effect on the economy.

The biggest challenge for the federal, state, and local governments in the 21st century is going to be to figure out how to continue to finance programs like unemployment, welfare, social security, medicare, and medicaid (and for state and local govts, education and healthcare) in a way that is sustainable. Sustainable means that the share of government revenues consumed by these programs is relatively stable, not growing quickly.

The government does not have extra money lying around to give back to the middle class. If it does so anyway, there are 2 problems:

•first, whatever it is will be a drop in the bucket, like the checks we all got and quickly spent this past summer

•2nd and more important, the money for these “returns” will come from increased borrowing. Next time you are offered a tax cut, translate it from “Bob do you want a tax cut?” to “Bob, would you us to borrow some money from your not-yet-born grandchild and give it to you now?”