It that sounds like a non sequitur, that's because it is.

Unless your last name happens to be Bush. In that case, cutting taxes on investment income is your pat answer to any economic or political problem. George H.W. Bush tried it. His son did it in 2003. Now George W.'s gift to the wealthiest Americans will be extended beyond 2008 to 2010.

That will cost the federal treasury an estimated $20 billion over five years.

People may wonder why the Congress would cut taxes on investment income earned primarily by the wealthiest taxpayers when the government faces huge deficits that will only get worse as the bills for the Iraq war and the retirement of the baby boomers come due.

First, it's an election year, and tax cuts make voters, or at least rich voters, feel warm and fuzzy about incumbents. (See Utah Legislature.)

Second, the weakened president's legislative agenda has been stalled. He needs to show that if the voters keep the Congress in Republican hands, they still can get things done.

The official argument for extending the tax cuts is that they will keep the economy vibrant because more investment capital will be available to create jobs. But that dubious argument has to be weighed against the counterclaim that bigger government deficits will drive interest rates higher, which will depress the economy.

On balance, we believe the reduced tax on capital gains is more about letting investors keep more of their income than it is about economic stimulus.

Congress also jiggered the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was originally designed to prevent wealthy taxpayers from escaping taxation via credits and deductions. Passed in 1969, that tax has not been indexed for inflation, so today it takes a bite out of many upper-middle-class taxpayers who earn more than $100,000. Congress settled on a one-year fix.

That is less egregious than the capital gains tax cut extension, but it still puts the interests of the well-to-do ahead of most people and the nation when growing income disparity already is a scandal.