The Republicans lost the symbolic war over taxes, when going back to the Clinton tax raises became uniformly known as keeping the Bush tax cuts. Instead of allowing Obama to talk of the “rich” etc., they should have asked him how much the rich person who makes $250,000 in New York or California actually gets to keep, since payroll, state, and federal income taxes, well before increases and health care surcharges, can easily top 50%. Keeping the “Bush tax cuts for the rich” sounds much worse than “Not going back to the confiscatory Clinton tax hikes.”