Clark and Political Jujitsu

Lies, damm lies and statistics has an interesting piece of political jujitsu for the Democrats that should be a tract that the eventual nominee investigate to deal with both national security and tax policy concerns that the pundits are conceding to Bush. The basic proposal is to argue for a repeal of certain parts of the Bush tax cuts and tax shifts by advocating dedicating all reclaimed revenues for general purpose national security improvements. These could be broadly defined to include public diplomacy, educational opportunities in the math, sciences and international studies and the Peace Corps.

The Clark plan for tax reform seems to be very well suited for this type of proposal. It is aimed at increasing tax fairness for children and their guardians which almost no one opposes per se while being revenue positive for the government by reducing or eliminating almost all of the goodies that are designed specifically for the richest of the rich in the Bush tax changes. As long as Clark or the Democratic nominee uses clear numbers to illustrate that 90% of the US population will never be on the first name basis of someone whose taxes are being raised under the Clark proposal, then this will do well as a tax policy. Since he is a general, it will also do extremely well as a cheap piece of national security protection.

I agree with Matthew Yglesias and NTodd that this is a damm good tax plan that I hope that Dean if he is the nominee, quickly steals from Clark. I would probably want to work around the edges to improve the plan, but it is a good idea. The national security angle is interesting too.

Crossposted at Fester’s Place