The Case for McCain

the last century. Never mind that trade barriers tend to hurt the poor, at home and abroad, the hardest. Obama pretends that the looming bankruptcy of Social Security can be solved entirely by raising taxes on the rich, and without reining in runaway spending at all. Former President Clinton, by contrast, freed trade and insisted that Social Security be made solvent without raising payroll taxes.

Under President Clinton, the top federal tax rate on income was 42.5 percent. President Bush lowered that rate to 37.9. Obama would go back to the Clinton rate, and then raise it some more, to 47.7 percent, to fix (actually, to fail to fix) Social Security. The top tax rate has not been that high in more than two decades. Obama wants to push through one of the sharpest tax-rate increases in U.S. history – and that’s before piling on additional taxes to pay for national health care.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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the last century. Never mind that trade barriers tend to hurt the poor, at home and abroad, the hardest. Obama pretends that the looming bankruptcy of Social Security can be solved entirely by raising taxes on the rich, and without reining in runaway spending at all. Former President Clinton, by contrast, freed trade and insisted that Social Security be made solvent without raising payroll taxes.

Under President Clinton, the top federal tax rate on income was 42.5 percent. President Bush lowered that rate to 37.9. Obama would go back to the Clinton rate, and then raise it some more, to 47.7 percent, to fix (actually, to fail to fix) Social Security. The top tax rate has not been that high in more than two decades. Obama wants to push through one of the sharpest tax-rate increases in U.S. history – and that’s before piling on additional taxes to pay for national health care.