Pardon my slow reaction here, but while listening on my local talk radio to yet another Obama surrogate defending the “Cut taxes for 95 percent of workers” claim, when of course nothing remotely approaching that number of American adults pay federal income taxes, something struck me as painfully obvious.

In Obama’s own words, in defense of this, he said “I’m not giving tax cuts to folks who don’t work, I’m giving tax cuts to people who do work,” Obama said of his tax cut proposals in response to McCain’s claim that Obama’s plan is tantamount to welfare.” Of course, by saying “American workers”, Obama clearly wants you to believe the taxes being cut are those that penalize work. They are called income taxes.

The defense, on the rare occasion Team Obama is called on the claim, is that Obama’s clearly implied income tax cut – in the form of a “refundable” tax credit, or check, and clearly some have gone as far as to call it a welfare check – is really a cut in other taxes these people pay, like sales taxes (there’s a federal sales tax? Ah, that’s what I thought…), gas taxes (but suspending that was a bad idea? Ah, never mind…), and, generally, increased costs particularly increased energy costs. The latter category can be described as regulatory and effective tax hikes, given the government policies which have precipitated them.

After all, people selfishly don’t like paying more particularly as a result of government actions and, oddly, he’s glad to oblige them. Some of them.

OK, so some of these other taxes that this income tax cut is really cutting don’t exist at the federal level or are taxes he has said he doesn’t want to even suspend. So, that moves his checks a little closer to the “welfare” column. But here’s the kicker: I believe that, after today, it is settled that Sen. Obama, as president, would support the Dingell-Boucher plan, the biggest, baddest global warming scheme ever floated in Congress’ hallowed halls (so far). One key feature of that proposal is “the issuance of a monthly rebate, for the loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act and the amendments made by this Act”.

Which really, if you think about it, is a nod to selfishness.

Ah, but it’s really not so limited as all that, is it? Later, under “Rebate calculation” we learn that “The climate change rebate amount shall be the average annual reduction in purchasing power for low-income households of a given size that results from the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under this Act and any other provision of law.”

Meaning, the same justification for Sen. Obama’s inco…er, tax cut is behind this.

So, let me ask, is this mutually exclusive of, complementary to, or irrelevant to his income tax cut. Or, is the inco…er, tax cut welfare?