How is the following quote a compelling argument for President Bush?

So long as anybody wants to work and can’t find a job, I know we’ve got more work to do in Washington, D.C. It starts with making sure your taxes are low. Be careful of these folks who travel around the country making all these big promises, and say, oh, don’t worry, we’ll pay for it by taxing the rich. You know how that goes. The rich hires accountants and lawyers and you get stuck with the bill. But we’re not going to let him raise your taxes.

(The quote is from the same speech that I linked to in the previous item.)

The first time President Bush offered this argument, I thought it was a gaffe. His basic argument is that the rich are so good at exploiting tax loopholes that tax increases don’t affect them. If that’s so, why then did the President give them a huge tax break when he lowered taxes? Why do statistics show that since the tax cuts they’re paying less taxes? Whose job is it to make sure that “the rich” can’t exploit these tax loopholes? Are people so stupid that they’ll be persuaded by this arguement? The mind reels.