Cut out the middle man

I'd intended a mathematical breakdown of Romney's tax policies, but this article beat me to the punch.

So let's talk more broadly about taxes. You don't have to listen to talk radio for long before you hear someone refer to the rich as "job-creators". And it's true that part of what the rich do is start and run businesses that allow punks like me blog and watch soccer instead of worrying about billing and scheduling and many other aspects of my field I find repulsive. I am all for cutting the hell out of taxes in support of creating jobs.

But why do we choose to subsidize rich people, who may or may not use the subsidy to hire people, instead of subsidizing hiring people? We spend tens of billions of dollars a year on capital gains tax cuts and other advantages for the wealthy on the premise that it will spur job growth. Rather than cutting taxes for every rich person, why not only cut tax for those who actually create jobs by directly tying the cuts to hiring?

So we raise the top tax rate by X%. With the increased revenue, we cut the employer's share of payroll taxes by Y%.

Democrats get their tax increase on the idle rich. Republicans get their tax cuts for job creators.