I know discussions about tax policy are boring, but Hilzoy’s readable post is an eye-opener.

Most of it can be explained in this chart:

This chart explains who benefits from McCain’s tax plan.  The third line is most important.  If you are in the bottom quintile (your income is in the bottom 20% of the country), only 1% of the total benefits from McCain’s plan will go to you and people like you.  But if you are in the top 20%, a full 90% of the benefits will go to you and people like you. 

That’s astounding.  McCain’s plan is quite simple and amounts to one thing: tax breaks for the wealthy (and for corporations).  For everyone else, don’t count on big tax breaks.

Of course, when anyone criticizes the McCain plan (which is like the Bush tax policy, but worse), they get accused of engaging in "class warfare".  But how can one look at the above chart, and see the "class warfare" isn’t already being waged against lower, middle, and even some high income people?!?

The other point to be made is that we are running into a recession and HUGE defecit problems.  How do we hope to make those up?  Saving on spending will only get us so far (especially if we’re going to continue fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and — if McCain has his way — Iran).