Tomorrow night, in front of 70,000 adoring supporters in Denver and millions more watching across the country, Barack Obama will formally accept the Democratic presidential nomination.And while the Illinois senator will undoubtedly deliver an articulate speech which will sharply criticize the Bush Administration’s handling of the economy, don’t be fooled by his promises of economic improvement in the form of middle class tax cuts and job creation. On the surface, these proposals may sound like a legitimate remedy to the financial struggles that America is currently facing, but unfortunately Senator Obama will only be telling us part of the story.On his campaign website Obama states that one of the central components of his economic policy would be tax relief for middle class Americans, a policy proposal listed under his plan to “jumpstart the economy.” While Obama’s proposed tax cut for the middle class is certainly necessary during the current economic downturn, and will deliver him a substantial amount of middle class votes in November, it will do virtually nothing to jumpstart the economy, and his broader economic plan will actually have the opposite effect.According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2005 the top one percent of wage earners paid 38 percent of all income tax revenues, while the top 20 percent of wage earners paid 86 percent of the total income tax burden. Unfortunately, Obama isn’t promising the people who spend the most money and have the greatest impact on our economy any sort of a tax break. Instead, their taxes would be raised and their share of the American income tax burden would be substantially increased in order to pay for Obama’s wildly expensive social programs.According to The Tax Foundation, Obama’s tax plan would redistribute $131 billion a year from the top one percent of taxpayers to everyone else. Not only does such an audacious proposal penalize those who have been the most successful in our society, but while tax breaks for the wealthy are often regarded as unnecessary and politically unpopular, it’s important to keep in mind that they have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the economy.As John Tamny stated in a recent New York Sun article, a 10 percent tax break for a family making $250,000 a year has far more of an impact on the economy than does a rate cut on a family making $50,000 a year. By reducing the after tax income of wealthier Americans, Obama’s plan will stifle investment which leads to job creation and more opportunities for lower and middle class Americans, which ironically are the same people Obama promises to help with his economic and social agenda.This is not to say that middle class Americans don’t deserve tax relief. While our economy is facing a serious downturn, those taxpayers earning the lowest in wages should undoubtedly get a break from the federal government. However, these marginal tax breaks should not be construed as a way to alleviate the economic challenges that America must overcome, and Obama’s plan to cut taxes for the middle class should not be viewed as anything other than a ploy to garner more votes.Increased investment will be essential to creating jobs that will expand the American economy out of its current recession. In this sense, we face a choice in this year’s election: do we want to follow Obama’s plan and have government bureaucracies investing in America’s economic recovery by spending the money taken from higher taxes on the richest Americans, or do we want the top wage earners to facilitate this recovery in the form of their own private investment? While the government is notorious for its inefficiency, corruption, and wasteful spending, the wealthiest Americans didn’t get rich by making poor financial decisions.