The Adam Smith Institute Blog has an article on it today talking about the moral case for low taxes. I'll refrain from pointing out that it fails to make one; the key issue for now is this quote:

The US annual list of the top 100 lifetime benefactors includes names like Bill and Melinda Gates, George Soros, and even the actor Paul Newman, whose supermarket sauces pay every penny to charity. US citizens can be generous because government leaves space for them to be so. It takes a far lower proportion of their wealth than our own Treasury takes from us. And US tax laws allow full deduction for charitable gifts.

Now that's weird, because another right-wing think tank has just reported a quite different view of US taxation. On Tax-News.Com (always good for a laugh) they say that:

The US and Canada share the spotlight with such countries as the Republic of Congo, China, Brazil and Germany in having some of the highest effective tax rates on capital among 81 developed and developing countries, according to a study by the CD Howe Institute, the Canadian conservative think tank.

Capital is of course a euphemism for the unearned income of the well off. In which case, come on guys. Someone out there on the right wing must be able to count. Who's correct? Or is it, as I suspect, a simple case of you'll spin anything to suit your purposes?