Obama's Tax Plan: Income Redistribution at its Finest

It seems that the idea that he is toting about 95% of Americans getting a tax cut is "more of the same." Here are the things he is proposing:

- A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to "make work pay" that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.

- A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.

- A 10% mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage interest deduction and other housing subsidies).

- A "savings" tax credit of 50% up to $1,000.

- An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.

- A child care credit of 50% up to $6,000 of expenses a year.

- A "clean car" tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.

Here's the political catch. All but the clean car credit 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.

Yup you will get all of these goodies even though you are not paying into the tax system in the first place. It is just a trillion dollar income redistribution from the top 5% to the now 63 million Americans (now 44% of all tax filers) who will not pay taxes. Hopefully I will be lucky enough to fall into that bracket but I would be willing to bet that it won't happen.