Karl Rove revives phony tax cut claim

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Karl Rove revives the phony claim that President Bush's tax cut reduced taxes on businesses by $4,000:

Let's also be clear about what it means to roll back the president's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as the Democrats want to do. Every income-tax payer will pay more as all tax rates rise. Families will pay $500 more per child as they lose the child tax credit. Taxes on small businesses would go up by an average of about $4,000. Retirees will pay higher taxes on investment retirement income. And now we have the $1 trillion tax increase proposed as "tax reform" by the Democrats' chief tax writer last month.

These "average" tax cut statistics about small business are extremely misleading, as we pointed out at Spinsanity in the context of the debate over President Bush's 2003 tax cut (see All the President's Spin for much more on the misuse of "average" tax cut stats):

Bush's latest talking points are deceptive in the same way, using averages that distort the benefits to taxpayers in question. The President has claimed on several occasions (most recently on Wednesday) that "Twenty-three million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $2,042 under this plan." Yet, as Paul Krugman pointed out in an an column on Tuesday, this claim exaggerates the plan's benefits to middle-income small businesses. As CBPP has noted, 79 percent of tax filers reporting small business income will receive less than Bush's "average" figure, and 52 percent would receive less than $500.

With the debate over repealing Bush's tax cuts heating up, expect to see more of these bogus talking points in the press.

Comments

[Howard]

It sounds like Rove is eager to tell us all what the Dems "want to do" and what the consequences will be. But he's making it up.

Where does this come from - "Every income-tax payer will pay more as all tax rates rise. Families will pay $500 more per child as they lose the child tax credit."

Or this - "Retirees will pay higher taxes on investment retirement income."

Really, they will ? All of them ?

*****

It's sad that Rove will rail against partisanship in a way that creates even greater partisanship. It's also sad that our "leaders" are engaging in a blame-game when every issue is the fault of Congress.

It's become a broken record.