There is so much more to Barack Obama’s tax plan than the soundbite version that everyone who makes less than a quarter million will get a tax break. First of all, the plan will give money to people who do not pay taxes. It also will increase Social Security withholdings for those who make over $100,000. And, according to this article, it will decrease the percentage of people who pay taxes. Under his plan, a majority of Americans (3 out of 5) will not pay taxes but have the political power to take more and more money from those who do. This would be a fulfillment of Plato’s nightmare, the reason, he said, that democracies will not work for long (see “The Republic,” Book VIII).

Sen. Obama is promising $500 and $1,000 gift-wrapped packets of money in the form of refundable tax credits. These will shift the tax demographics to the tipping point where half of all voters will receive a cash windfall from Washington and an overwhelming majority will gain from tax hikes and more government spending.

In 2006, the latest year for which we have Census data, 220 million Americans were eligible to vote and 89 million — 40% — paid no income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute), this will jump to 49% when Mr. Obama’s cash credits remove 18 million more voters from the tax rolls. What’s more, there are an additional 24 million taxpayers (11% of the electorate) who will pay a minimal amount of income taxes — less than 5% of their income and less than $1,000 annually.

In all, three out of every five voters will pay little or nothing in income taxes under Mr. Obama’s plans and gain when taxes rise on the 40% that already pays 95% of income tax revenues.

The plunder that the Democrats plan to extract from the “very rich” — the 5% that earn more than $250,000 and who already pay 60% of the federal income tax bill — will never stretch to cover the expansive programs Mr. Obama promises.

What next? A core group of Obama enthusiasts — those educated professionals who applaud the “fairness” of their candidate’s tax plans — will soon see their $100,000-$150,000 incomes targeted. As entitlements expand and a self-interested majority votes, the higher tax brackets will kick in at lower levels down the ladder, all the way to households with a $75,000 income.

Yes, it would be great not to pay taxes. But do you see the danger if only 40% of Americans are taxpayers?

From an AP report, San Francisco weighs decriminalizing prostitution:

In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest.

San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K—a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex.

The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes. . . .

Some form of prostitution is already legal in two states. Brothels are allowed in rural counties in Nevada. And Rhode Island permits the sale of sex behind closed doors between consulting adults, but it prohibits street prostitution and brothels.

Polls suggest that even San Francisco may not be ready for this. But can there be any doubt that this is the wave of the future for our culture? Having detached sex from reproduction and from the family, our culture has reduced sex to a consumer good. (Think of advertising, our entertainment industry, the pornography explosion, and the impersonal objectification of sexual partners.) It’s a small step to rendering sex as just another commodity to buy and sell.

India has launched a probe that will orbit the moon. It will also send down the flag of India to join those of the United States, Russia, and Japan.

In the meantime, the American space program, which will soon retire the space shuttle, will depend on Russian spacecraft to take us back and forth from the International Space Station. From The Long Countdown - For U.S. Astronauts, a Russian Second Home - NYTimes.com:

During the five-year gap after NASA shuts down the space shuttle program in 2010 and the next generation of spacecraft makes its debut by 2015, Russia will have the only ride for humans to the station.

The gap, which was planned by the Bush administration to create the next generation of American spacecraft without significantly increasing NASA’s budget, is controversial. But it is also all but inevitable, because much of the work to shut down the shuttles is under way, and the path to the new Constellation craft would be hard to compress even with additional financing.

Those who work side by side with their Russian counterparts say that strong relationships and mutual respect have resulted from the many years of collaboration. And they say that whatever the broader geopolitical concerns about relying on Russia for space transportation during the five years when the United States cannot get to the space station on its own rockets, they believe that the multinational partnership that built the station will hold.