Bringing Puntification to the Masses

I think it's bad that the author starts comparing the tax cuts to social program cuts, and then goes on to talk about the government spending additional money to support the wealthy that supposedly get a disproportionate tax cut. If one wants to bash that side of it fine, but use those facts rather than pulling out random ones that are mostly unrelated but are good for making the government look bad. People want tax cuts, and pointing out stuff like that just makes them feal guilty about asking for cuts, and thinking the cuts just can't be done without hurting "good" programs (allowing the issue to be covered and more bloat). Pointing out the money going to the people in the form of subsidies and direct support rather than just cuts is more likely to get people onboard with pushing for accountability and the right kind of change.

I agree that this isn't the best way to frame the debate but I think it's valid. The estate tax, from what I understand, affects people more and more and you go up the wealth index, so cuts to it, by definition, help the richest the most. In this case, if the Walton's stand to save 32 Billion and change, I think they'd still have a fair bit left over if the tax was left in place and they had to pay it. I don't think this is an invalid exercise because it seems limited to one type of tax cut, targeted at the super wealthy, and it breaks it down to show that individual families save enough to sponsor entire social programs which already exist and are being shutdown due to lack of funding.
To me, it seems very much like taxes that would otherwise being collected are not, and that lack of funds are being balanced out, in some aspects, by cutting funding to valid and worthy programs.
If the argument was "if we didn't cut taxes, we could add new programs", i think that is a different thing but programs like medicare and subsidizing heating oil to the poor and elderly? Seems like stuff the .gov should be doing in my book.

One of the big issues is the estate tax figures given are effectively theoretical, as they are talking about future possible liabilities. It's likely most of it would be sheltered anyways (if not spent). Cutting taxes there makes it more likely the estate value will get taxed by making it less worthwhile to jump through as many hoops to avoid it. A large part of the problem with personal debt in this country is people spending money before it's there - the government shouldn't be doing it any more than individuals. Back to the article, the cuts are happening now, and should be compared to current spending (tax cuts aren't the real cause). I have no issue with people making arguments on either side of either set of issues, it's the implications of direct relationships between them that aren't there that bugs me.

So, I ended up typing up this huge reply and then decided to just post it on my own blog. Here it is. I sort of got side-tracked near the end, which is part of the reason I just posted it over there instead of here. :P