Misleading "largest tax increase" claim

Talking points that annoy me -- the claim that Democrats allowing all or part of the Bush tax cuts to expire would represent the "largest tax increase in American history":

Almost all of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts are now set to expire at the end of 2010. Democrats have said they want to extend most of them, but they have adopted tough “pay-as-you-go” requirements that will require Congress to pay for new spending and additional tax cuts with tax increases or savings in other areas.

...Republicans said the Democratic budget would lead to huge tax increases without doing anything to slow the explosive growth of entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

“No matter how they spin it, no matter how they dodge it, they will raise taxes,” said Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, in debate on the House floor. “Numbers don’t lie. This budget, this Democratic budget, gives us the largest tax increase in American history.”

Actually, President Bush and the Republican Congress wrote the largest tax increase in history into the law. And I'm sure Rep. Ryan voted for it at the time. It's time for them to lie in the bed they made.

Comments

[Noumenon]

Very succinct, a slam dunk. Can't wait to try this out on the first person I hear this from.

[danimal]

The truly annoying part of this is that it could have, and probably still can be, a potent club to use against Republicans. How the Dems let Republicans claim that Republican-passed tax legislation is a Democratic initiative is beyond ridiculous. It is the Republican tax hike of 2010!

[MarkM]

Your logic (or lack thereof) is amazing. When you start at "x" and pay "y" less for a while and then go back to paying "x" sometime later. That's not an increase. That's called temporary relief. The only way republicans could get the original "cut" past the democrats is by making it temporary, in hopes that they could make it permanent later. Even if it is not permanent, the republicans are allowing it to go the the level that it started at before they took control. The democrats are raising it above where they took control. But hey, if you want to remain deluded, feel free. It's a free country, for now, until your socialists take over.