"If you do surveys, 95% of people think they are middle class," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that has analyzed the candidates' tax proposals. "This is including people who are objectively quite poor and people who are objectively quite rich."
Burman added: "I guess it says something nice about America that rich people don't want to act like they're better than anybody else and poor people don't like complaining about how tough it is to pay their bills."
Economists tend to spend more time debating the definition of poor, in large part because that cutoff has consequences for an array of social programs designed to assist those whose incomes fall below the poverty line.
The candidates' answers may stem, in part, from their financial circumstances: From 2000 to 2004, before he began earning substantial royalties from his books, Obama and his wife reported income of between $207,000 and $275,000 on their tax returns. By contrast, McCain's wife's wealth has been estimated at more than $100 million.
But their positions were likely also driven by their tax policies. The Illinois Democrat has proposed tax hikes on individuals with incomes exceeding $250,000, while the Arizona Republican has declared his intention to extend the tax cuts begun by President Bush and make new cuts to corporate tax rates -- both moves that would benefit the very wealthy. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center has calculated that the middle-income earners would get a $325 tax cut from McCain's proposed changes to the tax code, while the top 20% would have their taxes reduced by $6,500.
The Obama campaign jumped on McCain's definition of rich.
"It should come as no surprise that John McCain believes the cutoff for the rich begins at $5 million," said spokeswoman Jen Psaki. "It may explain why his tax plan gives a $600,000 tax cut to the richest 0.1% of earners."
In responding to Warren's question Saturday, McCain sought to broaden the discussion, saying that "some of the richest people I've known in my life are the most unhappy" and that rich should be defined "by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one we inherited."
Even Obama's figure of $250,000 represents a certain inflation that has crept into Democratic politics, Burman said. Presumably in pursuit of votes, he said, Democrats have for years been raising income thresholds for eligibility for social programs and tax benefits.
"It's been going up and up and up," Burman said. "It includes a lot of people who would be considered swing voters, soccer moms in previous election cycles. It seems pretty clear that Obama has decided it's safe to go after people of $250,000 incomes. And McCain has decided it's basically not safe to [go after] anybody."
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greg.miller@latimes.com
