Time for a Spark

For as pedestrian and ordinary as Obama came off last night, I still think the McCain campaign needs a fire lit underneath it. This could be it, it they're listening:

(S)uch a proposal would include a cut in income taxes, and tax rates, for every American who pays taxes. The alternative system would impose no income taxes on the poor and what is often called "the working class" (the bottom 40% of income earners who don't pay federal income taxes now). This proposal would also eliminate federal income taxes on the middle class, the middle 20% of income earners who pay only 4.4% of all federal income taxes today.

And such a tax reform would be an antidote to the class warfare, neocollectivist tax policies of Barack Obama. If implemented, it would also jump-start the economy. Under this optional tax system, savings would increase and investment would soar as capital around the world is drawn to a suddenly more confident U.S. economy. This new surge of capital would end the credit crunch, and allow old businesses to expand and new ones to start. Wages would grow, along with the overall economy. And as the world invested in America, the dollar would strengthen, as happened in response to the tax cuts that generated the 1980s Reagan boom. This would ease inflationary fears and pressures on the Fed.

Mr. McCain also proposes to abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is currently slated to grow to impose a trillion dollar tax increase on the American people in just a few years, burdening 25 million middle-class families. Abolishing the AMT would save middle-class families $2,700 on average per year, a cut of $60 billion each year from current law. Mr. Obama, by contrast, offers tax increases on savers, investors, small business, employers, and other job creators, a trillion dollar plus spending increase, and new regulatory burdens. That has no prospect of restoring economic growth. It will only do the opposite.

Read it all - there's nothing not to like here, unless your stock and trade happen to be socialist/populist redistribution of wealth and credit manipulation (cough OBAMA cough). Also, why should anyone who promises a tax break to people who don't pay any taxes ever be worthy of a vote?