Political thoughts

Kerry (who doesn’t have time for terror briefings) says they have good hair, and now he also tells us that Edwards “was selected as People magazine’s sexiest politician of the year. I (Kerry) read People magazine.”

Well, I don’t.

I’d rather rely on Kudrow, who’s saying The Anti-Growth Ticket: On torts, trade, and taxes, Kerry and Edwards will do big damage (read the whole article, please),

By the time Kerry and Edwards get finished with their proposed $900 billion tab on higher health-care spending, you can bet their tax-hiking proposals will reach much deeper into the American pocket book than their publicly stated $200,000 DMZ line.

Of course, this sort of thinking argues that successful earners and investors are never entitled to reap the fruits of their labor — even though the rest of the population is entitled to massive health-care subsidies and central-planning price-control schemes. But the politics of envy misses a key point: Higher tax rates on success blunt incentives for the non-rich who are working hard to climb the American ladder of prosperity. Study after study shows that the middle class is shrinking — not because more are becoming poor, but because more are getting richer.

Repealing tax cuts on investment would also do great damage to economic recovery. It was the decimated investment sector that brought the economy down between 2000 and 2002. The Kerry-Edwards tax-the-rich proposals would in effect prevent the investment seed corn from reinvigorating the very businesses that create jobs in the first place. The so-called rich won’t suffer — they’re already rich. Instead, the middle class will face a higher toll-gate barrier as they try to move up the ladder.

Kudlow also points out that “The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay over one-third of income-tax collections. The top 10 percent pay two-thirds. The bottom 50 percent pay only 4 percent of income taxes. And those making under $30,000 a year essentially pay no income taxes at all”.

I wish someone would tell McGreevy that. But then, McGreevy’s too busy attacking the prosecutor and worrying about Chugh and D’Amiano to be listening to anything else.