frankenlies.com
#11: Al, Give Us a Break ... A Tax Break
Bush's 2001 tax-cut plan is another target of Franken (Chapter 35 of Lies). Franken spins an array of numbers to give his readers the impression that George Bush’s tax cut is just a swell arrangement for the rich.
What has a more objective source said about Bush's plan? Time magazine, certainly not a Bush administration sympathizer, admitted Bush's $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan,
1 (italics and bold added)"is not primarily a sweetheart deal for the rich. It's primarily a sweetheart deal for just the people whom, [Tom Daschle said], Bush's plan 'shortchanges' - working families."
The lowest tax bracket under Bush's plan was reduced from 15 to 10 percent, a difference of 33 percent. No other tax bracket sees nearly such a change. Of course, if you want to look at the tax plan in pure dollars, as Franken does, Bush's plan is open to all sorts of spin. The bottom line is if you give a gazillionaire any kind of tax cut, he will obviously keep more money than someone in the bottom bracket. But that's because he's a gazillionaire. Any tax cut at the top end will benefit the top end in raw numbers alone. In the end, the top bracket is eventually lowered from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, a difference of about 12 percent. Compare that to the 33 percent savings found among those in the lowest bracket. Now people can understand President Bush when he says, "The bottom end of the economic ladder receives the biggest percentage cuts."2 The President is telling the truth. But Franken?
The issue of taxes has been major issue of debate between conservatives and liberals for eons. President Kennedy (a liberal) believed in tax cuts. President Clinton did not. Each side offers a respectable position. The least Franken can do is "engage his readers honestly" (Lies, page 20).
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Notes:
1 Frank Pellegrini, “Dissecting Bush’s Tax-Cut Plan,” Time, February 27, 2001.
2 Ibid.