IN THAT CASE, I’M SURPRISED OBAMA HASN’T PUSHED HARDER ON THIS: Megan McArdle: Closing Tax ‘Loopholes’ Would Choke the Middle Class.

Paying for new spending by “closing the loopholes” is a favorite rallying cry of almost everyone. But rarely are those people picturing giving up their own deductions for mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, dependent children, or retirement accounts. Why, no! Those aren’t loopholes. Those are just the basics of a decent middle-class life. Loopholes are the deductions used by other, richer people who can afford crooked lawyers.

The sad fact is, however, that almost all of the money lost to “tax expenditures” goes to you, Mr. or Ms. Middle American. It cannot be otherwise; you have most of the money. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like you have most of the money. Didn’t you just read an article saying that the top 1 percent of Americans collect around 20 percent of national income?

Why, yes, you did. But that means the bottom 99 percent have 80 percent of national income. If we confiscated every dollar the top 1 percent made, that still wouldn’t quite cover our national expenditures. And it is not actually practical to take all of it, since the normal response to 100 percent tax rates would be to move or to stop making money.

Indeed.