On Jobs and Taxes

So the main (policy) focus of the McCain campaign this week has been taxes. Essentially, their continued arguments are that:

1. The Obama tax plan will put the incomes of hard-working Americans a risk;
2. Progressive taxation is "socialist" and amounts to nothing other than wealth redistribution;
3. Low taxes, especially for the wealthy, are the engine of job growth (which, according to GOP orthodoxy is an indisputable a priori fact of the universe).
   

Of course (1) is a well-known lie.  If you are interested in more details about the impact of the Obama tax plan for any given income range, the campaign offers a widget to help compute it. But there is also plenty of independent reporting out there on the subject.

Argument (2) is just plain silly, but consider McCain's own comments on progressive taxation from as recently as 2000:

At an October 2000 town hall on MSNBC’s Hardball, an audience member asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about why the rich pay higher taxes than the middle class. McCain defended progressive taxation, stating, “I think it’s to some degree because we feel, obviously, that wealthy people can afford more”

Of course, this is also the substance of his argument against the Bush tax cuts. McCain has since distanced himself from this stance, which is perhaps why he doesn't bring up Teddy Roosevelt so much anymore:

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar?s worth of service rendered?not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective, a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

Even the socialists are confused by what the McCain camp might mean:

Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.

And the New Republic rounds out the argument elegantly:

But let’s get back to this apparently controverisal phrase--which, I gather, is going to remain prominent in McCain's campaign rhetoric over the next few days. What, exactly, is so awful about "spreading the wealth"?

Indeed.  

But what about part (3)?  Is it really the case that tax cuts are irrefutably good for job growth? Turns out, not so much:

It remains to be seen if this strategy will get any traction, but Nate Silver picks the money stat out of a recent CBS/NYT poll:

In short, it just ain't true and people aren't buying it.