Tax plans drawn to scale.

I've gotten into a few debates recently with friends who oppose Obama's tax plan for two main reasons: (1) they feel that raising the capital gains tax will hurt the national economy by discouraging investment and removing liquidity from the market; and (2) taxes are going up for those households making over $250,000 per year. That's not much money, they argue -- a good chunk of my friends have advanced degrees (with associated debt) and live in S.F. and NYC. If they want to even dream of owning their own apartment in a decent neighborhood, making that kind of money is a necessity.

If you agree with point number two, first take a look at the chart above, which shows how the tax plans of McCain and Obama will directly impact different segments of the population.*

Clear? Good. Welcome back. Next, Daniel Gross takes apart the second argument in his Slate article "The deluded Obama critics who think $250,000 is a middle-class salary."

Barack Obama's tax plan, . . . promises to improve the nation's fiscal standing by scaling back tax cuts for people making more than $250,000. Since then, the business pundit class has been griping that people who make $250,000 a year aren't really wealthy, especially if they live in and around New York; San Francisco; or Washington, D.C. . . . On Wednesday afternoon, CNBC's unscientific online poll found that (surprise!) only 35 percent of respondents believed an income of $250,000 qualified a household for elite rich status.

I have two pieces of bad news for the over-$250,000 crowd. First, the reversal of some of the temporary Bush tax cuts is probably inevitable, given the Republican fiscal clown show of the past eight years. Second, I regret to inform you that you are indeed rich. . . . [I]ncome data can surely tell us something. And they tell us that $250,000 puts you in pretty fancy company. The Census Bureau earlier this week reported that the median household income was $50,223 in 2007—up slightly from the last year but still below the 1999 peak. So a household that earned $250,000 made five times the median. In fact, as this chart shows, only 2.245 million U.S. households, the top 1.9 percent, had income greater than $250,000 in 2007. (About 20 percent of households make more than $100,000.)

In dealing with aggregate nationwide numbers, we should of course take account of the significant differences in the cost of living from state to state. . . . But even in wealthy states, $250,000 ain't bad—it's nearly four times the median income in wealthy states like Maryland and Connecticut. And even if you look at the wealthiest metropolitan areas—Washington, D.C. ($83,200); San Francisco ($73,851); Boston ($68,142); and New York ($61,554)—$250,000 a year dwarfs the median income.

Still feel that $250,000 isn't much money? Let me know why -- I'd love to discuss.

[Update -- According to this 1997 paper put out by the Fed [pdf], 1% of the population owns 82% of the stock market.]

* Looking at tax policy alone can be misleading, especially because of the radical differences in proposed health care plans.

Since you asked, and since it's therapeutic for me to unload, here are my honest opinions of Sarah Palin and her candidacy for the Heartbeat Away ministry:

Of course she's not fit for the office she seeks and everyone who had a hand in her selection knows it; McCain's selection of Sarah Palin is the most cynical and reckless machination on the part of a serious candidate for high office I have seen in my lifetime.

It remains disturbingly unclear the extent to which voters will acknowledge or punish McCain's recklessness (in part because many wise Democrats cannot figure out how to impugn his judgment without attacking her, which is, ironically, all but impossible to do b/c of her comically messy personal life).

Her biggest impact will be in bringing skeptical religious conservatives to the polls despite her personification of many things they demonize in others.  McCain simply can not win without these voters, and they have no taste for him.  But a bunch of them will bother to vote for her.  This development more or less evens the playing field and returns the electoral map to its 2004 dimensions, putting the burden on Obama to flip a red state or two, and returning to disproportionate power and influence the so-called "independent" voters.  These voters make up the little sliver of the electorate known as the "middle" on our wafer-thin political spectrum, and they usually profess to not knowing the difference between the two candidates/parties.  To my horror, many of these voters are, allegedly, women.  Who should just know better.  No offense, guys.

However, by election day Sarah Palin's novelty will have worn off and although it pains me to say it, I believe that we women are our own worst enemies when it comes to positions of real power and influence.  Ultimately, many of the so called "independent" "moms" who are said to be a key voting bloc - married suburban and small-town women with children - will betray her in the voting booth.  She may be "just like them" - that's what we're hearing all the time now, how refreshing it is for women to have the validation of her serious candidacy given the resemblance of her narrative to their own.  But although they'll never admit it, a lot of women are, themselves, sexist, and there surely is no shortage of sexist women among independent suburban moms.  Just as Barack Obama will have to overcome some social acceptability bias - you ought to subtract four to five points from his number in any poll to account for the people who don't want to admit to survey takers that they're racists - Sarah Palin will be a victim of sexism in the voting booth, even as a candidate for the #2 job.  And that sexism will come as much - or more - from women as from men.  The fact that she is simply unfit for the office may even be a secondary consideration to these voters, although again, they won't admit it.

Tangentially, the same female voters who may distrust their sisters to hold positions of power may also decline to elevate someone who reminds them of the strident PTA mom in their neighborhood, or the overbearing and meddlesome parent whose kid is on their kid's little league team.  Sarah Palin will end up reminding a lot of people of the bossy women they know who take over the high school sports boosters club or the girl scout troop or whatnot.  All of which leads me to the conclusion that McCain gave up the all-important "middle" when he chose Sarah Palin, in exchange for a base that he despises and that despises him.  Obama, then, still has a chance if he can step oh so lightly through the minefields.

But what has discouraged the hell out of me is the way Sarah Palin has dragged our public dialogue into ratholes I never thought existed.  She has deliberately and gleefully shown us to be a country of haters in her own image.  By her own words and deeds and by those of the campaign team that is controlling her (which I imagine is done by one of those joysticks on old-school video games), she has gotten us to cheapen our own futures, individually and collectively.  She/they are striving viciously to ensure we don't ever get around to talking about real, serious, maybe life-threatening public issues.  Whatever your doubts (or mine) about the extent of George Bush's command of the levers of power (as opposed to Cheney's, Ashcroft's, et al), she will raise such doubts to the level of the Broadway musical if she should ever make it to Washington.  Wait, scratch that.  That movie has already been made.  It was called "Being There."

Copied below, in chronological order starting with the most recent, are links to some of the finest gems I've been able to unearth from the vast wastes of the Internets. If you're like me, they'll be a cool drink of refreshing reason, with a chaser of sickening ohmygodOrwell'sfutureisheretoday.