Fact Check on McCain ads: a "pattern of deceit"
WWW.factcheck.org
We've already reported on at least three 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.
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The ad says Obama and “out of touch Congressional leaders†plan to implement “painful tax increases on working American families,†and it shows an image of a family presumably upset about an impending tax increase. But, as we've reported numerous times, Obama proposes a tax cut for the vast majority of households.
We spoke with Len Berman, director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, which has produced one of the most authoritative analyses of the two candidates’ tax plans. When we asked him if Obama’s claim that he would “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families†was true, Berman told FactCheck.org that it was “consistent with our estimates.†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.
MUCH more here: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/a_new_stitch_in_a_bad_pattern.html
