Matt Yglesias

McCain’s Tax Cut For McCain

TPM reader JS has an idea:

I wish team Obama would drive the elitism point home by doing the math on how much of a tax break John and Cindy McCain would get from McCain’s plan vs the avg American (at the US median household income). And then for good measure show what would happen with Obama’s plan.

This would keep the theme of McCain’s elitism and Republican elitist economics in the press for a while longer.

Fortunately, the Wonk Room took a look at just this issue back in June based on 2006 income data. Back then, Barack and Michelle Obama earned a bit less than $1 million while John and Cindy McCain earned almost $6.5 million. Both families, in other words, were doing pretty well but the McCains were a lot richer. Indeed, John McCain would deliver to himself a tax cut worth over $370,000 — well more than the average family earns and indeed even a lot more than McCain’s annual expenditures on servants. Unfortunately this doesn’t include the data on a family closer to the American average, which would probably be more interesting to most people than the question of the top 0.1% versus the top 0.5%. What’s more, it’s actually somewhat misleading in terms of a comparison between the financial standing of the Obama and McCain families, since the Obamas were earning much less than this until very recently.