Tax Cuts and the Stimulus

An article this week on the $100+ billion dollar Obama tax cut, which no one ever heard of.  I regard myself as well-informed, and I may have been vaguely aware of the cut back when it was passed, but it soon slipped my mind.  As it happens, the stimulus package included the cut.  It seems as if it's part of the packaging problem Obama has had. He loses on two counts:

• because the tax cut was included in a bigger legislative package, it didn't and doesn't get the publicity it would ordinarily rate
• because people equate "stimulus" with "spending", Obama's seen as a bigger spender than he should be.  That's given the ordinary usage of American politics, which says spending is only when the government writes the check, not when tax breaks are given out.