The proposition you made was that a "modest" tax cut "targeted" to the middle class, or the "not rich" would be a better stimulus than one that was across the board, or dividend tax cuts.

Let's leave the red herring of the dividend tax break out of this. The mantra of the Democrats has been that any "across the board" tax cut would be a massive giveaway to the rich, and they have been saying this constantly for at least twenty years, long before eliminating dividend taxes was even a gleam in Bush's eye.

I showed that even a 100 percent tax break to the lower 50 percent would return only a piddling amount to the private economy. Your response was to redefine "not rich" upward, to $100,000 or even $200,000 a year.

Well, okay, if you say so. The floor for the top 5 percent is about $128,000 a year. So if you define anything under that as "not rich," than "not rich" is 95 percent of Americans. I find it kind of hard to define a tax cut targeted to 95 percent of Americans as anything other than "across the board." And note that this 95 percent STILL pays only 56 percent of the taxes. If you put the floor up at $200,000, you can see where it's going.

The Democratic Party will never define exactly what they consider "rich." Just try and nail them down on an income level for this. Of course, most Democratic policies rely on the constituents not understanding exactly what they're talking about. The goal of Democratic rhetoric is to place a vague impression in your mind of the "rich" as "any bastard with more money than I've got."

For extra fun, ask a Democrat for a precise definition of a "working family." Again, they don't have one. The idea is to place in your mind the idea that a "working family" is YOU and the rotten rich (the "non-working families??) are THEM.

Remember, the Democrats do not WANT a stimulus to work on Bush's watch.

And if you don't want a tax cut, by all means, give yours back to the government. There's a spot on the 1044 for just such a gift. Oddly, I have yet to hear of a liberal doing this.