Political Quote of the Day

In case you missed this from yesterday, one candidate's chief adviser has these words of wisdom for voters:

"The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead, and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we're on."

So who said that? One of Mitt Romney's people?

Nope. David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign adviser. He just made a good case for Romney and gave the conservative blogosphere lots of ammunition.  I'm guessing that quote will show up in Romney's ads very soon.

Axelrod did not have a good TV day. Here's more from Jen Rubin:

There was plenty more that Axelrod said that was downright wrong or misleading. He "accuses" Romney of wanting to the rich to pay at a lower tax rate; what he doesn't say is both Romney and the Simpson-Bowles plan also take away deductions and credits so the rich won't be paying less taxes relative to the rest of the population.

He uses the president's favorite straw man: "No one can argue that it makes sense that people who are making a million dollars a year or more to pay less than the average middle class worker in this country." And no one is. In fact the top 10% of earners have been paying roughly 70 percent of the taxes. The bottom 50 percent pay about 3 percent of the tax load.

But let's take a step back. Where in this is a plan to accelerate growth and job creation? How does creating a sort of new minimum tax for 4,000 taxpayers assist in the recovery? Maybe that is why Obama and Axelrod spend so much time on gimmicks and phony "fairness" arguments. They haven't got a clue how to create an economic environment in which investors, employers and consumer will all benefit.

Axelrod and Obama intentional use misleading words to make people believe things that simply aren't true, especially when it comes to class warfare. Warren Buffet does not pay less taxes than his secretary, but you'd think he did because of the rhetoric. Buffet pays at a lower tax rate because his income comes from capital gains and not ordinary income. Obama pays at a lower rate than his secretary for pretty much the same reason. That doesn't make it wrong. A good tax plan would have a zero rate on capital gains to stimulate investment and economic growth.