One for The Gipper! Obama the Supply Sider!

Obama: Recession could delay rescinding tax cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush's tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

Nevertheless, Obama has no plans to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date, as Republican John McCain advocates. Instead, Obama wants to push for his promised tax cuts for the middle class, he said in a broadcast interview aired Sunday.

"Even if we're still in a recession, I'm going to go through with my tax cuts," Obama said. "That's my priority."

What about increasing taxes on the wealthy?

"I think we've got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now," Obama said on "This Week" on ABC. "The news with Freddie Mac (FRE) and Fannie Mae (FNM), I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we're fragile


-more-

Now wait just a second here!

Haven't we been told ever since Reagan's income tax rate cuts in the early Eighties that income tax rates don't matter where the performance of the economy is concerned?

Who knew Obama is a Reaganite?!

This is the same candidate who tacitly -- if not overtly -- admitted to Charlie Gibson that his desired hike in the capital gains tax rate would result in a decrease in revenues, though that unfortunate consequence was outweighed by some utopian quest for "fairness".

In truth (if memory serves -- our recollections of Mondale are understandably fuzzy), there has been a tacit endorsement of the much-maligned "Reaganomics" by every Democrat nominee since those historic tax rate cuts.

No nominee has proposed returning the top income tax rate to 72%, where it stood when Reagan took office, let alone to the unconscionable 91% top rate in place when JFK cut income tax rates -- during a war, no less!

That's because tax rates DO matter!

It's nice to see Obama come around to the realization that the billions of dollars his tax rate hikes would pillage from the productive are best left in the hands of those who will invest them or use them to create the jobs that he, for all his omnipotence, cannot.

Perhaps, one day soon, he will come to see the victims of botched abortions as worthy of the protection of the law.