DEOP's Blog

The debate last night lightly touched on the candidates income tax plans. Even in this small period of time, Sen. McCain found it necessary to repeat one of his campaigns misleading statements.

Sen. McCain admits he doesn‘t have the needed grasp on economics (“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he says. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”), but does he also not understand tax law? OR is he just following the politicians standard trick of repeating false statements knowing that some followers will blindly believe whatever they say?

According to the Tax Policy Center “The two candidates' plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes….. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers.”

From an article by Factcheck:

A McCain ad wrongly claims Obama plans "painful tax increases" for working families.

McCain's new ad puts another stitch in what we've called his pattern of deceit on Obama's tax plan.

The ad is plain wrong about higher taxes on working families. In fact, Obama's economic plan would produce a tax cut for the majority of American households, with middle-income earners benefiting most.

We've already reported on at least 3 other ads, in both Spanish and English, from Sen. John McCain's campaign that distort his rival's tax policy. The ads claim that, for example, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would raise taxes "on the sale of your home" and that he has a "history of raising taxes" and that he wanted to raise taxes on "families" making just $42,000 a year. Claims like these have led us to say that McCain's campaign is engaging in a "pattern of deceit" when it comes to describing Obama's tax plan. This most recent ad fits right into the template.

Overall, the TPC found that Obama’s plan would produce a tax cut for 81.3 percent of all households, and a cut for 95.5 percent of all households with children.

Under Obama's plan, the TPC estimates that people (or couples) making between $37,595 and $66,354 a year would see an average savings of $1,118 on their taxes.

Under McCain’s plan, on the other hand, those same individuals would save $325 on average — $793 less than the average savings under Obama's plan.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_new_stitc
h_in_a_bad_pattern.html

Some of the other claims made by McCain that factcheck debunked:

Instead of blindly believing the BS being spewed about, to see in reality how the actual tax proposals could affect you, check out the following web sites:

*Change in Tax Liability Under the Presidential Candidate Tax Plans for Nonelderly Single and Head of Household Families

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cf
m?ID=411693