NBC's O'Donnell uncritically aired McCain's misleading claim that Clinton and Obama are "going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars a year"
SUMMARY: In a report on Sen. John McCain's economic speech, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell aired a clip of McCain saying of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: "They're going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars a year." However, O'Donnell did not note that Clinton and Obama have proposed tax cuts for middle- and low-income Americans.
On the April 15 edition of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O'Donnell reported on Sen. John McCain's economic speech earlier that day and reported that in his speech, "McCain claim[ed] Democrats will cost you more." O'Donnell then uncritically aired a clip of McCain stating of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: "They're going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars a year, and they have the audacity to hope you don't mind." But O'Donnell did not report that Clinton and Obama propose tax cuts for middle- and low-income Americans, contrary to McCain's suggestion that the two Democratic presidential candidates intend to raise taxes on everyone.
In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, McCain's claim that Clinton and Obama are "going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year -- and they have the audacity to hope you don't mind," is misleading, as both Clinton and Obama have, in fact, proposed tax cuts for the poor and the middle class. As The New York Times noted, Obama has proposed "at least $80 billion a year in tax cuts to middle-class workers, homeowners and retirees." Clinton's campaign website says that she would "[l]ower taxes for middle class families by: extending the middle class tax cuts including child tax credit and marriage penalty relief, offering new tax cuts for healthcare, college and retirement, and expanding the EITC [earned income tax credit] and the child care tax credit."
Both Clinton and Obama have expressed support for rolling back the Bush tax cuts on those making more than $250,000. In a March 27 interview (subscription required) with The Wall Street Journal, Clinton noted that she supports "letting the [Bush] tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000." During the June 3, 2007, Democratic presidential debate, Obama stated: "I would roll back the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000."
From the April 15 edition of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams:
O'DONNELL: McCain's core idea: lower taxes and make up lost revenue with cuts in government spending. But critics and some economists argue McCain's math is wrong, that his plan would tilt toward the wealthy, swell the deficit, and not trim enough.
Beyond numbers: plain old politics. McCain claims Democrats will cost you more, and he tried to play off the title of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope.
McCAIN: They're going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars a year, and they have the audacity to hope you don't mind.
O'DONNELL: McCain saved some of his heat for his own party, accusing Republicans of wasteful spending and the president of failing to stop that with vetoes, while in a new ad McCain ran for the middle.
When the dust settles with the Dems and its either Barack or Hillary..... I get the feeling that it won't really matter......
Contrary to what the Republicans, corporate owned media, and the right-wing hot-air machine says...... I think even Mike Gravel can come out of nowhere and beat McCain....
It seems to me that the longer McCain gets to talk daily the worse it will be for him...... Just keep repeating the same old crap John..... your only doing the Dems a favor......
However, it will ultimately be up to the Dems to not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat........ I could run and probably beat McCain for all the independent thought that he has compared to Bush!
Except that Gore and Kerry were superior candidates (IMO) and they lost to to the likes of Bush. And then there's the October surprise potential as well as the apparent unflattering American fearfulness of the boogeyman which the likes of a "war hero" like McCain would protect us from. I hope I'm wrong, but my instinct is that the real American will win.
And remember (says the pessimist guy) stuff like this gets through uncontested to a good number of Americans, that their taxes will go up thousands of dollars.
This might be that "average" that the Repub. mouthpieces like to use, and I've seen it actually work.A guy who worked for my company had heard that the Bush tax cuts worked out to an average of a couple thousand per person, or something like that. He mentioned it while he was in the office going over some paper work with me.
This was a guy who was swinging a hammer,probably making 25k, and he told me he wouldn't mind a few thousand extra.I asked him if he realized that average was lumped in with people making 100 times what he made, and he probably was going to get a pretty small cut, if anything. He just didn't want to think about that, but he was still voting Republican.He didn't get 2 grand back.
I think there is a new powerful strain of nihilism in the land which explains people voting against their own best interests. A sense that the social order is capsizing and that it can only be righted by first sinking it. So if the Republicans cause an economic disaster, the thinking is that there will arise new political and social institutions, a new America where real Americans and others just very disaffected but with no such pretense, will take their rightful place in society, in full control economically, politically, and culturally ----or at least their relative status will improve.
Today for them all it takes is a flimsy excuse to rationalize a vote for what used to be feared but is now only seen as a risky opportunity----a shuffling of the American deck, a rearrangement of the social hierarchy. In chaos the strong, unified real Americans and their associates will dominate. The downside of voting for incompetence/sabotage is now a potential upside.
RE voter ignorance -
On c-span this morning, a caller was commenting on the debate last night and said more investigation needed to be done on Obama's muslim background. When the moderator said that it was an established historical fact that Obama is not nor has never been a muslim, this woman (with a southern accent, by the way), dismissed it and stated that she still believed that Obama was a muslim.
Republicans are scary.
I hope I'm wrong, but my instinct is that the real American will win.
The real American, of course, is Barack Obama. :-)
That's pretty elitist, thinking that Americans on average, are that stoopid. Why do you hate America?
I think that come November, millions of Americans will learn from their mistakes in 2000 and 2004 and Vote Democratic.
YOU are a complete moron. Stupid as they come. I dont think I will take your word for it, I mean after all you are an idiot
In your dreams.
Presidn't McCain (i.e. Bush v. 3.0) has __The__ Plan to Clean Up
the 3 Trillion Dollar War Debt...?! Plus the other trillions of debt without raising taxes
...haven't quite heard the _details_ on that one yet...
hmmm, Well at least Dr. Suess had happy endings in his stories...
Good Night and Good Luck
just by letting the bush tax cuts expire...
So, using this toddler-logic, did GWB raise my taxes by not giving me a $500 check every year after 2001?
Did my state raise my car registration fee by making me renew it when it expired?
As for the capital gains and dividend taxes, please explain to me why investment income should be taxed at a lower rate than earned income?
you really don't get it, do you?
capital gains taxes inhibit the flow of capital to the most productive industries. why? because people with capital gains delay recognizing them in order to avoid paying taxes. thus, the capital gains are trapped and not available to an industry that could make more profitable use of the capital. also, because the tax does not index for inflation, the tax rate is much higher than stated.
as for dividends, well, dividends are paid out of capital that has already been taxed. thus, there is a double taxation. ridiculous.
in an s corporation or partnership the earnings are passed through to the owners and only taxed once. but in a c corporation the earnings are taxed twice.
Oh, I get it just fine, thank you.
All taxes inhibit the flow of capital to some extent. Cry me a river that people will shift things around to avoid paying taxes. If you want a loophole that allows reinvestment into a small business, so be it.
Also, you know what else is double taxation? every singe cent of sales tax, gas tax, and gov't fees that we pay. Don't come to me with the weak sauce sob story of double taxation. We all pay it every day.
Ludicrous. It is NOT double taxation anymore than when my mechanic is paid by me from money that has already been taxed he THEN has to pay taxes on it as income. MONEY isnt taxed PEOPLE are taxed on the money they earn. I get taxed, pay my Gardener, who pays his plumber who pays his mechanic who buys some IBM stock and when he gets a dividend check and is taxed on it only in corporate propaganda is ONLY that last transaction double taxation As for when companies make capital outlays your post is supposition. They make capital outlays when it will make them money and DONT until it will. What evidence do you have beyond it being convienient that they will DELAY making money because it will be taxed a bit more? That is typical spin
Abraham Lincoln said
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
The rightwing just makes excuses why money made WITH money that is the bulk of what is earned by the wealthy out to be taxed at a lower rate than the money I make off my labor.
There's yet another tax hike. Obama wants to lift the wage cap for Social Security contributions (which is a tax), thus raising taxes for many middle class families: those making between 97K (or slightly more after year-to-year increases) and Obama's arbitrary "rich" cutoff of 250K.
I'm not sure if the employer's half of the contribution is also affected, but if so, that just doubles the tax hike.
As the San Francisco Chronicle correctly observed during last night's debate, "That catches Obama in admitting that he might raise taxes on those earning a lot less than $200,000."
I don't remember that being "repeatedly noted" by MMFA.
If the only coverage from here on out were on C-Span, where the Candidates themselves had to make their own cases, either Democratic candidate would eviscerate Gramps. Unfortunately, Gramps is now enmeshed in the same vile machinery which gave us 8 years of the George W. Bush, and I fear the worst. The Democrats just haven't caught up to the GOP's ability to lie and get away with it.
What I would like to hear more about from all three of them is discussion on the AMT. The AMT does threaten the middle class, and can raise their taxes by thousands per year.
I would alslo like to hear more on what people consider to be middle class.
So...family of four...2 wage earners....what is the top and bottom combine family income level you would all consider middle class. And to avoid cost of living confusion....say in a place like Indiana, Ohio, PA.
Politicians and taxes. Sheesh.
The Dems play class warfare, pitting the middle class against the wealthy but who are they kidding. The bottom 60% of wage earners only pay .6% of the Federal Income Tax to begin with. That means the top 40% of wage earners pay 94.4% of all taxes. (from Fox News April 15)
So virtually the whole tax burden falls on the wealthiest to begin with. The Dems are as guilty as the Republicans in being overly simplistic in order to garner votes.
Taxes are an important discussion. Getting to the specifics as to what it means for you personally takes some digging.
Gee, I'm confused. PigBoy Limbaugh told me years ago that "soaking the Rich" wouldn't do any good, since the middle class was where the vast majority of money is. Rush wouldn't have lied, would he?
As for class warfare... don't make me laugh. What do you call it when the GOP Propagandists foster resentment of "welfare queens" and blame the poor for their own plight? What do you call it when they implore us to pity the poor billionaire, whose tax burden is "excessive". GMAFB
I'm not sure where the news story you refer to got their numbers, but I found this that shows similar numbers. The top 50% paid 96% of fed. income taxes. What you fail to mention, which seems to me to be a very important point, is that the cutoff for the top 50% is $30,881 in income. With that knowledge, two things pop into my head: 1. I can't believe that 50% of the population earns less than $30,000. That is unacceptable. 2. Why would we expect people who earn less than $30,000 a year to pay more income taxes.
Also, this is only fed income taxes. When you add in state and local taxes, sales taxes, FICA, gov't fees, etc., the middle class now shoulders the bigger burden. This is also unacceptable.
That's a useful link but I wanted to offer a clarification: The figures were for those federal income tax returns showing a positive adjusted gross income. So it was half of that group, rather than half of the total population, that made less than $30,000.
Since I think we can safely assume that those whose returns showed a negative AGI and those who weren't required to file are clustered at the lower end of the economic scale, the upper 50% of filers here is likely close to the richest 40% in the claimed Fox News reference, making the two sets of figures even closer that might have at first appeared.
This does, however, mean that the median personal income is indeed below $30,000; in fact it's around $23,000-$25,000. But because of multiple wage-earners in enough households, the median household income is about $48,000.
First, let's be clear that the figures you cite have nothing to do with the taxes paid by individuals but represent the portion of the total amount of federal income taxes paid by aggregate groups. For that very reason, those figures, which are brandished wildly by the rich and their well-paid media toadies, are by themselves utterly meaningless because they lack the absolutely necessary context of what portion of national income those groups receive.
The information at the link Jawill11 provided, information which is based on IRS figures and, as noted, is similar to what you cite, says the top 50% of filers paid nearly 97% of federal income taxes - while receiving over 87% of taxable income. So their tax is not in any way wildly out of proportion to their income and certainly nowhere near the impression that is intended to be created by the contextless data.
Just as importantly, the fact that the richer half of our taxpayers pay at a higher rate should neither surprise nor disturb us: In a progressive tax system such as we supposedly have, they are supposed to be paying at a higher rate! The whole idea of a progressive system is that the richer you are, the greater a portion of your income you can afford to contribute to "promote the general welfare." Contrary to the notion that some (for their own selfish ends) try to promote, percentages can be useful for statistical analysis but they are often useless in describing real world conditions of individuals - because we do not pay for our clothing, our food, our health care, we do not pay our rent, our car insurance, our whatever, in percentages. We pay in dollars. And the average chief executive of a Standard & Poor's 500 company could pay out 99.7% of their total yearly compensation in all taxes and still be better off than a median household.
So I'm really, really not interested in hearing how tough the rich have it.
the origins of amt, as I recall, was in reaction to a report that a small number of people, really just 100 or so, who were millionaires paid no taxes whatsoever.
so to punish those few they created amt and look what they got.
the reason people were able to avoid taxes was that prior to tefra the tax code allowed all kinds of shelters. that was okay because the individual rates were so high. but under tefra they took away the shelters, and in exchange reduced the rates.
but amt continued.
There are no Democrat congresspeople. There are DemocratIC congesspeople and ReNAMBLAcan congresspeople. Since you have outed yourself as an assimilated Limborg and too ignorant to even know the NAME of the largest political party in America I didnt bother to read the rest of your post. Ignorance begets ignorance, why waste my time?
Nice mythmaking CL. Though you could have thrown in a nazi or facist accusation in for the cherry on top.
What is it with all the nut wingnut names that start with C lately? Is there a quota?
Hey eweston
I am a right wing nut, and a proud member of the vast right wing conspicary. Are you telling me I have to change my name......perhaprs C-point of view?
During the special election in Illinois to fill the seat formerly held by Dennis Hastert, you should have heard the commercials by Oberweis. "Jim Foster will raise your taxes by $4,000". A Republican specialty, lying with averages. By eliminating the tax breaks for those making over $250,000, the AVERAGE taxes will go up in that district by around $4,000. Never mind that it'll only affect the richest people in the 14th district. Do whatever it takes to convince the person making $50,000 that their taxes will go up. Lie, lie and lie some more.
That's what McCain is doing. Lying with averages. Take the fact that the a rich person's taxes will shoot up by $58,000 and add 9 people whose taxes, under some Democratic plans, will go DOWN $2,000 each ($18,000 all told) and POOF! on AVERAGE their taxes go up $4,000/each.
Being a Republican means always portraying taxation as evil then raise or maintain current taxes on the middle class while cutting taxes for just the richest Americans. Then tell everyone how they saved on AVERAGE $5,000 each.
WHEEEE! Immoral behavior can be fun!
Randy