Bill Clinton promised a middle-class tax cut - and then signed the biggest tax hike in history. Why would Obama be different, especially with large Democratic majorities in Congress?

But Obama’s tax plan gets worse. He says there’s “$1 trillion worth of loopholes in the corporate tax code.” That’s amazing, because 2007’s entire corporate tax bill was about $372 billion. Obama doesn’t understand that boosting corporate taxes will drive jobs overseas, reduce tax revenue and hammer The Little Guy. Democrats love employees (at least in theory), but hate employers.

The National Taxpayers Union calculates that McCain has endorsed $68 billion in new spending, while Obama’s proposals would add $344 billion to the Federal budget. Increased government spending hurts the economy, because it displaces money that can be more efficiently used in the private sector. Damage from a fatter Federal budget exists whether spending is financed by higher taxes or increased borrowing.

The Tax Foundation says the top 1% of taxpayers, or those earning $388,906 a year and above, pay 39.9% of all income taxes; the top 5%, or those earning $153,542 and above, pay 60.1%.

High tax rates are a disincentive to work: Top earners will just stay home, because it doesn’t make economic sense to earn another dollar. That means tax revenue falls. Worse, Obama’s planned tax hikes on “the rich” would kill venture capital, snuffing innovation in technology, software, biotech – you name it – and gutting the nation’s competitiveness in global markets.

Obama proposes to boost the top income tax rate to 39.6% from 35% and to boost the tax on capital gains and dividends to 20% from 15%. On estates exceeding $7 million, he proposes to increase the tax to 45% from 0 after 2010. Moral: Sell - and plan to die soon.

McCain is sometimes incoherent on economics, but he backs tax policies that would promote growth. He’ll do that by limiting the scope and reach of the Federal government to something approximating what’s provided for in the Constitution.

However, believing McCain will adhere to Constitutional limits requires a leap of faith, given his effort to gut the First Amendment through “campaign finance reform.”

With luck, Obama killed it himself - first by saying he’d accept public money, and then by breaking his promise after raising more money than any presidential candidate in history. Just words!

The economy will be fueled by oil for the foreseeable future. Yet Obama refuses to increase supply by tapping domestic reserves offshore or in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He also talks about a windfall profits tax, a disincentive to exploration.

It’s a law of nature: Cut tax rates, the economy booms and tax receipts grow. It worked for Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Dubyuh. Note to Obama: Spending balloons the deficit - not tax cuts.

Obama doesn’t understand how the economy works because he’s never run anything. But never mind: Obama has a grand plan to remake the US economy in the image of France, right down to crushing taxes, high unemployment and slow growth.