The WSJ piece also was emphatic about Obama delivering a net tax cut -- but mute about how this was going to finance his universal health care plan. Krugman has voiced displeasure about this in his column once already: "...to pay for universal health care, which was supposed to be the overriding progressive priority in this election ... Why doesn’t Mr. Obama propose raising more money?" And that was when he thought Obama was raising revenue -- not promising to cut it. As an ironic touch, the piece solemly states: "Sen. Obama believes that responsible candidates must put forward specific ideas of how they would pay for their proposals." Then goes on to attack McCain for doing just that -- telling how he would pay for his health care plan. "Sen. McCain's plan does include one new proposal that would result in higher taxes on the middle class. As even Sen. McCain's advisers have acknowledged, his health-care plan would impose a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years on workers ... Even after accounting for Sen. McCain's proposed health-care tax credits, this plan would eventually leave tens of millions of middle-class families paying higher taxes." The argument seems to be, pretty much literally, that paying for McCain's modest health insurance proposal is too expensive tax-wise for people to accept, but Obama's universal health care proposal is free and comes with a tax-cut bonus. Either that or the people who really believed "universal health care ... was supposed to be the overriding progressive priority in this election" are in for a bigger letdown than the Social Security reformers. Or, maybe, this is all merely just more old, old style politics. "Promise 'em all what they want to get, never mention the cost."