For the last eight years I've heard Democrats tell us that tax cuts are irresponsible. Indeed, during the last campaign we heard Joe Biden define patriotism as paying higher taxes. So what gives with this?

A top adviser to President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that the country's slowing economy won't keep the new administration from fulfilling its plans for a middle-class tax cut.

"We feel it's important that middle-class people get some relief now," Obama adviser David Axelrod said.

"This package will include a portion of that tax cut that will become part of the permanent tax cut that he'll have in his upcoming budget," Mr. Axelrod said.

The adviser appeared Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face the Nation."

The incoming administration is considering tax cuts of $1,000 for couples and $500 for individuals that will be delivered by reducing the tax withheld from paychecks. That plan has been estimated to be worth about $140 billion in 2009 and 2010.

Odd, but wasn't that the argument used by George W. Bush to reduce the the amount of income tax paid by every American who paid income tax when he entered office in 2001? Indeed, didn't those tax cuts have the very impact that the incoming administration says this cut will have -- putting money in the pockets of Americans? Does this mean that the Democrats are admitting that Bush was right?

Oh, and I cannot help but be struck by this twisted bit of illogic.

The lump-sum rebates issued earlier this year were used by many people to pay down debt, rather than spending the money and boosting the economy as the administration had hoped.

Now wait -- if (hypothetically speaking) my wife and I took our $1200 and used it to pay down our credit card debt or student loans, wouldn't this have had the effect of dribbling money into our pockets the same way this Obama tax cut will do? After all, the amount of the Obama cut will be about $80 a month -- roughly the same as would be left by the reduced payments on the bills in question.