Last May, this page called on the presidential candidates to engage in a serious debate on the federal budget deficit, now $415 billion, compared with the $236 billion surplus when President Bush took office four years ago. What has emerged instead is a pair of dueling tax plans, each of them inadequate to support its candidate's vision of government. President Bush is fixated on making his ill-conceived tax cuts permanent and creating new tax shelters for affluent investors. Senator John Kerry's tax agenda raises money for the government by repealing Mr. Bush's tax cuts for high-income earners, an idea we...