Why Tax Cuts Always Work ...

In his regular column for The Hill, Dem pollster Mark Mellman explains why tax cuts continue to be a potent campaign issue:

While aficionados see budget politics as zero-sum, voters do not. Voters believe, wrongly but nonetheless strongly, that hidden in the budget is what we might call "function 999" -- waste, fraud and abuse -- a category encompassing nearly half of federal spending. Were that the case we could in fact cut taxes, increase spending, eliminate the deficit and still have a little left over to waste. In voters' minds the choice is not between Social Security and tax cuts but between waste and tax cuts.

I would, of course, argue with him on the facts: Clearly, there is plenty of waste to be cut from government. In this case, Mellman views the public as dupes who just don't get it.

But the bottom line is that even this Dem pollster is admitting that tax cuts are a potent issue for Republicans to use.