Perhaps Barack Obama’s boldest claim in this campaign has been that 95% of Americans will pay lower taxes under his administration. That has confused a great number of people and rightly so: As the Wall Street Journal notes, more than a third of Americans pay no income taxes at all. That sent American Spectator reporter Philip Klein on the search for Obama’s 95%.

So when Plouffe reiterated the 95 percent claim, I asked him a simple question aimed at clarifying whether Obama’s tax plan was about cutting rates, or merely handing out government checks. “What rates would actually go down”? I asked.

“Middle class people are going to see, systemically, their taxes reduced, and small businesses,” Plouffe responded.

When asked exactly what rates would go down under an Obama Administration, Plouffe seemed not to know. He simply said, “We’ll have to get you the exact details on that,” and repeated the same line when pushed further by Klein. So, Klein decided to ask Obama chief strategist David Axelrod about the claim.

SHORTLY AFTER my exchange with Plouffe, I was listening to David Axelrod, Obama’s senior strategist, and I decided to put the question to him slightly differently: “Let’s say you’re making $50,000 a year,” I posited. “What taxes would you see go lower under the Obama plan?”

Axelrod replied, “You would get a $500 cut in your taxes. If you’re a couple, $1,000.”

When pushed on whether that would come as a check or lower rate, Axelrod said that you’d see a reduction in your taxes and referred Klein to Obama’s budget department. It would seem that the top two officials in Obama’s camp aren’t terribly knowlageable as far as details go on Obama’s policies. Brian Deese, an Obama economic advisor, sent the following email to Klein later that evening.

- The Obama plan would reduce income tax rates for a typical family of four the lowest level in more than 50 years (4.32%). [Tax Policy Center]

- Obama’s plan will cut taxes as a share of the economy to 18.2% — below the level that prevailed under Ronald Reagan. [Tax Policy Center 9/12/08]

What’s the Tax Policy Center, the only source used to back up his claims? As Klein notes, it’s an off-shoot of the left-leaning Brookings Institute and Urban Institute. Klein writes:

But the study does not repeat the Obama campaign’s 95 percent claim. (In a late night email, I raised these points with Deese, and also asked him to explain the criteria under which the campaign arrived at the 95 percent number, but did not hear back as of this writing.)

Funny that. So, still no answer on this 95% number and Team Obama doesn’t seem terribly forthcoming as far as, you know, details outside of the talking point go. Promising.