Obama's "Stealth" Tax Cut

Right after he got into office, President Obama got a new tax cut approved that covered at least 95% of all working Americans.   The tax cut was for a minimum of $400 ($800 for a married couple) and for most low-wage working Americans, was actually larger than the tax cut they got from President Bush (which was huge for the rich, but only a pittance for most).

The weird part of this is that the Obama tax cut is more invisible to most Americans than the Stealth Fighter is to enemy radar.   Obama gives a tax cut to working Americans and nobody seems to know about it, while Bush gives rich people a huge cut and is celebrated for it.   The whole thing makes no sense.

The New York Times says that according to a NY Times/CBS News Poll taken last month "fewer than one in ten respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans.   Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know."   That is a pitiful display of ignorance among Americans.   Their taxes are cut by $400 or more and less than 10% realize it even happened.

Part of the reason for the disparity between the knowledge of the Bush and Obama tax cuts is the way it was done.   Bush played his cut up to the fullest and bragged about it at every opportunity.   Obama (and the Democrats) decided to just quietly put more dollars in American's paychecks.   They thought that this way the money would be spent instead of saved and stimulate the economy.

The money was spent and they are still trying to figure out how much the economy was stimulated.   But the Democrats would have just been better off giving a cut at the end of the year and then bragging about it as much as possible.   Now they have let the Republicans and teabaggers get away with the LIE that Obama raised taxes.   And the American people seem to be too stupid to see through that lie.

A stealth tax cut may (or may not) be good for the economy, but it is a disaster politically.   It makes the Republicans look like the party who cuts taxes for Americans, even though their cuts really only significantly helped the rich.   The Democrats do need to stimulate the economy, but they also need to learn to play hardball politics -- and part of that is bragging about successes (like tax cuts) and vilifying Republican policies that hurt ordinary Americans (such as the support for job outsourcing and opposition to regulating Wall Street).

Democratic policies are much better for most Americans.   It's time they let the American people know that.