On taxes, Edwards is a strong class-warrior. Criticizing President Bush during the primaries, he said, ?By the time he?s done, the only people who pay taxes in America will be the millions of middle class and poor Americans who do all the work.?

Here, the North Carolinian runs into some factual problems. The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay over one-third of income-tax collections. The top 10 percent pay two-thirds. The bottom 50 percent pay only 4 percent of income taxes. And those making under $30,000 a year essentially pay no income taxes at all.

By the time Kerry and Edwards get finished with their proposed $900 billion tab on higher health-care spending, you can bet their tax-hiking proposals will reach much deeper into the American pocket book than their publicly stated $200,000 DMZ line.

Of course, this sort of thinking argues that successful earners and investors are never entitled to reap the fruits of their labor -- even though the rest of the population is entitled to massive health-care subsidies and central-planning price-control schemes. But the politics of envy misses a key point: Higher tax rates on success blunt incentives for the non-rich who are working hard to climb the American ladder of prosperity. Study after study shows that the middle class is shrinking -- not because more are becoming poor, but because more are getting richer.

Repealing tax cuts on investment would also do great damage to economic recovery. It was the decimated investment sector that brought the economy down between 2000 and 2002. The Kerry-Edwards tax-the-rich proposals would in effect prevent the investment seed corn from reinvigorating the very businesses that create jobs in the first place. The so-called rich won?t suffer -- they?re already rich. Instead, the middle class will face a higher toll-gate barrier as they try to move up the ladder.

On torts, trade, and taxes, the Kerry-Edwards vision will do enormous damage to the welfare of consumers and businesses. Opposing tort reform, raising taxes, erecting new trade barriers, and confiscating the rewards for personal effort and investment is a prescription for economic demoralization -- not growth.

A big question remains, however. Will Messrs. Bush and Cheney be successful in making this case?