Mike; nice of you to offer your opinion from over the pond. Don't be too hasty to judge this discussion as nasty or non-informative. Your statement about one line philosophies applies here also. Taxes affect everyone and they are very complicated subject. The bottom line is when a president wants to appear as if he is a tax responsible individual he immediately goes about proposing tax cuts and then showing them off to the voters. But the truth is the taxes must be paid one way or the other. If the Federal Govt cuts their share of the tax burden then that money must be found from another source. Usually from state and local govts. This happens because the states must fund those programs that suffer a shortfall in revenue due to the Federal Tax cut. You may not have a progressive tax policy there where the percentage of taxes owed increase as the income increases. Here that is the fact. So the wealthier amongst us hide their income by accepting it in stock transfers which are taxed at a much lower rate. Or they Defer payment of income over a period of time so as to lower their taxes due for each year. There are more ways but you get the picture. You know how data can be manipulated to seem to say something other than the truth and that is what the simplistic explanations of tax payments does. I won't bore you but if you have any questions please feel free to ask regardless of your political beliefs; as I say taxes affect us all. And don't be too hasty to judge how the workingman is treated concerning taxes. It is pretty much universal that the ones who actually do work tend to end up paying the frieght for everyone in all countries.