A sensible person might ask, If incomes are down, why is there so much spending? Inflation-adjusted consumer spending has risen 4.3 percent in the past year and 3.4 percent annually since the end of 2000. The Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania notes that average weekly earnings, after inflation, have increased 1.08 percent per year since Bush took office. That period includes terrorist attacks and wars, and came on the heels of a busted stock market bubble, a recession, and unprecedented corporate scandals, all of which began on the Clinton-Gore watch.

The last guy who tried to finesse a strong economy with a phony middle-class-squeeze label was Bob Dole. Remember him? Like a dog chasing his own tail, Dole ran in circles around his rhetoric while Clinton breezed to victory.

Which brings us to taxes. The Kerry campaign has decided to help middle-class earners by putting the screws to upper-end earners. Huh? It?s just class warfare. Kerry?s plan to raise dividend and capital-gains taxes is nothing but a big tax on the stock market and capital formation, which provide the crucial funding to expand job-producing businesses. Tax investment more, and you simply get less investment. How does that promote prosperity? Kerry?s tax on the so-called rich is really a tax on 90 million investors, most of whom are [ITAL] not [UNITAL] rich.

There?s a good reason why Bush?s pro-investor tax cuts have been a huge success. Saving and investing is the seed corn the U.S. economy requires to grow. Since the Bush tax cuts went into effect a year ago, the stock market is up from the depths, the value of mutual funds is at a record high of $3.4 trillion, and family net worth (homes, stocks, and small businesses) has hit a record $45 trillion.

In similar tax-hiking fashion, Kerry wants to repeal NAFTA and other trade-liberalizing agreements, measures that have lowered the import tax on American consumers and boosted business export sales overseas. How can a presidential candidate be for internationalizing a war and isolating an economy? Today?s 135 million Wal-Mart shoppers, regular Americans who enjoy high-quality, low-cost imports, shouldn?t stand for it.

Another great Kerry contradiction is health reform. He wants to bring down the cost of health care, even though his trillion-dollar subsidy plan will do precisely the opposite. And with John Edwards -- Washington?s top class-action tort-man -- on the Democratic ticket, runaway malpractice lawsuits and sky-high insurance premiums will only get worse.

Stock market taxes, import taxes, and tort taxes will only grow the economy more slowly. Punishing the rich, protecting outdated unionism, and bashing businesses won?t create more jobs. Appeasing our terrorist enemies will never lead to victory.

The inmates aren?t just on the convention floor in Boston. They?re running the show.