We were talking tax cuts as an economic stimulus, and whether or not they will be across the board, or targeted, and what the effects would be.

The key concept here is that tax cuts on the upper end put a much larger amount of money back into the economy than tax cuts on the lower end. So basically your examples, which assume an equivalent result for all income brackets, are invalid.

To illustrate this, a 10 percent income tax cut on the bottom 50 percent of income earners would allow them to retain an additional $2.7 billion of their income. That doesn't suck, but on the other hand, a 10 percent income tax cut on the top 10 percent of earners puts about $49 billion back into the private economy. See how that works?

You can also see why tax cuts on those who don't pay a lot of taxes appeals to politicians. You can strut around bragging about being a tax cutter without actually cutting any taxes. What's not to like?

Of course, if the real goal isn't economic stimulation, but just soaking the rich to buy votes from the rest, then we've got another issue.