I’ve never understood the wrath lefties gave to oil companies. They provide a valuable and crucial product and they make money doing so. Why is this a problem?

Well, Justin Danhof targets the Left’s cash cow: movie tickets. And he asks why not tax their windfall profits?

Obama has a slight edge over McCain with Catholics, the critical swing vote in presidential elections.

From Gallup: “Among major U.S. religious groups, Catholic voters are most closely divided in their presidential voting preferences, with Barack Obama holding a narrow 47% to 43% advantage over John McCain.”  (Hat tip Southern Appeal.)

McCain can win Catholics over. His “I hate war” TV ads are a great start. Talking about marriage, abortion and judges more often would certainly help Reagan Democrats to cross the aisle. But he also needs an economic message that will help working class Catholics in Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

As Ross Douthat has mentioned before, it’s not really income tax rates that are hurting working class voters. It’s the payroll tax, inflation, mortgages and $4 gas. A strong dollar, cheap energy and payroll tax relief would go a long way to easing the pocketbook problems working class voters have.

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn at his best today in the WSJ:

Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans.

Later, citing “compassionate  conservatism” as a culprit for today’s confused GOP, Coburn writes:

Compassionate conservatism’s starting point had merit. The essential argument that Republicans should orient policy around how our ideas will affect the poor, the widow, the orphan, the forgotten and the “other” is indisputable – particularly for those who claim, as I do, to submit to an authority higher than government. Yet conservatives are conservatives because our policies promote deliverance from poverty rather than dependence on government.

Compassionate conservatism’s next step – its implicit claim that charity or compassion translates into a particular style of activist government involving massive spending increases and entitlement expansion – was its undoing. Common sense and the Scriptures show that true giving and compassion require sacrifice by the giver. This is why Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, not his neighbor’s possessions. Spending other people’s money is not compassionate.

Hear hear!  The doctor analogy is certainly apt.  The calm and reserved doctor enters the waiting room to deliver the bad news to the family.  “Fellow GOP members, I am sorry but your loved one has a serious disease.  The near term outlook is grim.  I am going to recommend that you begin treatment immediately, including some intense medication that may result in the loss of some of the superficial  trappings that have made you look good over the past 15 years.  If you take my advice, and follow the regimen carefully, your friend might actually recover.”

Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert Stein have made a strong case for giving families tax breaks from payroll taxes (not just income taxes). After all, for Social Security to survive, we need more children.

The authors have also suggested permanently reduces tax rates on capital gains, dividends, and estates, cutting the top income-tax rate and the corporate-tax rate, and abolishing the alternative minimum tax on individuals.

Sounds like a great tax policy for McCain to get behind.

Holman Jenkins says: Rev up the bulldozer.