After the Senate passed its version of the American Rescue Plan Act, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney claimed “the result of that package is going to be middle-class tax increases.” The legislation cuts middle-income taxes.
An ad from a conservative group attacks Ohio Gov. John Kasich as an “Obama Republican,” and misleadingly claims his budget “raised taxes by billions, hitting businesses hard and the middle class even harder.” The ad only tells half the story.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he “never raised taxes” in his 14 years as governor of the state. That’s not the case. During his tenure, he increased taxes on businesses, cigarettes, fireworks, diesel equipment and insurance.
The White House is claiming that the top 1 percent of all earners would pay 99 percent of the capital gains tax increase proposed by the president. But that claim rests on some debatable logic.
A Republican ad claims Mike Ross, the Democratic candidate for governor of Arkansas, voted “against taxpayers” more than 80 times while a member of the House. We find that number to be inflated.
Mitt Romney falsely claims in a series of TV ads that President Obama “will raise taxes on the middle class by $4,000.” That’s nonsense. The ads cite a conservative group’s study, but even the group itself doesn’t say Obama will raise taxes on middle-income taxpayers. It says his budget could result in a “potentially higher tax burden” over the next 10 years.
In fact, the group’s study considered two other budget scenarios —
David Stockman claims that discretionary spending is "out of control." But it’s up just 1.6 percent this year.
The former Reagan administration budget director caught our attention with an incendiary quote to The Fiscal Times news site, where he urged fellow Republicans to shut down the government if necessary to achieve spending reductions:
David Stockman: It’s time for the Republicans to man-up and let it burn! Discretionary spending is out of control, and if the GOP doesn’t force a big roll-back,
Palin repeated several false claims about Obama’s tax policies.
Obama did not in fact vote to increase taxes on “families” making as little as $42,000 per year. What Obama actually voted for was a budget resolution that called for returning the 25 percent tax bracket to its pre-Bush tax cut level of 28 percent. That could have affected an individual with no children making as little as $42,000. But a couple would have had to earn $83,000 to be affected and a family of four at least $90,000.
Summary
The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee both claim that Obama has voted 94 times “for higher taxes.” We find that their count is padded. After looking at every one of the 94 votes that the RNC includes in its tally, we find:
Twenty-three were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
Seven of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many,
Democratic challenger Jim Pederson inaccurately portrays incumbent Sen. Jon Kyl’s voting record on energy policy. He says Kyl “voted oil corporations billions in special tax breaks” when in fact Kyl was one of the few Republicans to oppose tax breaks in the recent energy bill.