Chief among the many mystifying aspects of the liberal philosophy is the absolute refusal to understand the benefits of tax cuts. I don’t know which aspect is hardest to understand: The fact that cutting taxes spurs economic growth or the idea that letting people keep more of what they earn is simply the right thing to do. More than anything, liberals love to play power politics with the tax code.

The critics of President Bush’s tax cut (and you will hear many in the coming months) are positively apoplectic over the prospect of losing revenue. Why? The more of our tax money they have means the more they have to spend. And they love to spend — except on defense, which is why the loudest complaint will be about the $87 billion aid package to Iraq.

What Democrats fail to point out, however, is the hundreds of billions of dollars spent frivolously on education while test scores continue to fall, farm and corporate subsidies that disrupt the free market and well-intentioned social programs that never seem to end the problems they’re created to solve.

We’ve been throwing good money after bad since the days of the New Deal, and it never seems to be enough. So Democrats keep going back to the tax well no matter what the state of the economy or the deficit.

“But the Bush tax plan is unfair,” they wail. “It only benefits the rich.” No, not only the rich, but mostly the rich. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the top five percent of wage earners contribute 53.25 percent of the federal income tax total, the top 10 percent pay almost 65 percent, and the top 50 percent cover 96 percent of the total tax bill. It only stands to reason the people who pay the most taxes will receive most of the benefits from tax cuts.

You may not be completely sold yet. After all, you were told the biggest reason to support tax cuts was because it would help the economy and here we are still slogging along. But it has been proven tax cuts can aid economic recoveries— it happened in the ’60s when John Kennedy took a modest swipe at the tax code. It also worked in the ’80s when Ronald Reagan restructured the tax system.

But it is not tax cuts alone that will get our economy back in gear. It is the hard work, ingenuity and confidence of the American people who drive the engines of commerce.

It was technological innovation that drove an economic boom in the 1990s, despite President Clinton’s tax increase. The hard work and ingenuity are still here — it is the confidence that is lacking. However, some of the leading indicators are turning around and our confidence is growing.

My final argument is simply a philosophical one. It’s our money, we should be allowed to keep it. Americans are more than willing to fund important government services, but we must retain the incentive to earn and provide for our families. A tax code that does not confiscate earnings enables us to do this and ensure our economic future.