Barack Obama says the way to help out the average American is with tax cuts and credits.
Hillary Clinton says we should have a happy gasoline tax holiday this summer!

Don't even get me started on the "stimulus" package.

All the presidential candidates, including John McCain, want us to believe that they're just like us -- regular folks who have to worry about how to afford filling up the tank and whether clipping coupons makes sense.

Yup, just ordinary people.

They all want us to believe they understand our budgets and our lives, but none of them really do. When was the last time any of them had to stop by the Giant with just a $5 bill in their wallet and realize they couldn't afford bread AND milk?

Don't get me wrong -- I'm glad my parents are going to be getting a few hundred dollars from the feds. But they're not going to be taking advantage of all the deals egging consumers on to spend their checks on big screen TVs.

My mom and dad will be buying groceries for the Memorial Day picnic they're having. I'm not talking anything fancy -- hot dogs, BBQ and potato salad will pretty much be it.

I'm going to use an unpopular word here -- they don't get it, because they are all elite.

And that's OK. Given the last few years, I'd like my next president to be "elite" -- "the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons," according to dictionary.com.

But while they're busy trying to convince us that they have our best interests at heart, I have an idea for them. Barack, Hillary, John -- if you really want to find a way to help give families a tax break, close all the tax loopholes for huge corporations and make them pay their fair share.

If the feds would spend their time going after corporate taxpayers, think of the real tax cuts the government could make. The government could lower everyone's taxes across the board, rather than creating a $500 tax cut here or a $400 tax credit there. Now THAT would spell r-e-l-i-e-f.

Of course, such a proposal before getting into the White House would damage a candidates' efforts to raise campaign contributions from the fat cats running those very corporations, so I get it -- you're not going to hear anyone come out and actually say that we should look more to large corporations to fund our government than to individual taxpayers.

The answer is that easy. But obviously the easy thing is too difficult.