On Friday I posted about the Tax Foundation's piece on Obama's proposal to exempt the first $50,000 of senior citizens' income from income tax.

I respect the Tax Foundation. They do some good work. I frequently make use of their research. But their "analysis" of Obama's proposal to exempt senior citizens making less than $50,000 a year from income tax seems disingenuous. Obama's proposal is a bad idea, but not for the reasons the Tax Foundation gives.

Here is the the response of Communications Director Bill Ahern:

Jay, From the way you're describing Obama's planned cut for seniors, it sounds as if you think it's just a great big zero bracket, above which the 15% tax rate would kick in. That would be much better (and a much bigger tax cut). No, you're right that no one would make tax policy this way, but as silly as it sounds, the "cliff" really was the plan. That's why the Tax Policy Center at Brookings/Urban has been using it in their estimates of the plan's cost: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411741_updated_candidates.pdf That $5 billion dollar cost estimate for the seniors' exemption would be much larger if a senior making $75,000 were only going to have to pay tax on the last $25,000 he earned. He won't -- he'll be paying on all $75,000. Also, you can tell by Jason Furman's reaction to Mark's piece that the cliff interpretation was correct -- they've rushed out a new "estimate" of the additional cost of the phase-out, $2 billion.

AND:

In short, "hit job" was unfair. How much leeway should analysts give candidates when they come out with such proposals? No information about adjustments by type of tax filer, or for inflation, or how it phases out. And it's been out there for weeks generating great press with no details at all. TPC was the first to comment on it, but we took it another step, and it actually prompted some sort of reaction.