Media outlets uncritically repeat McCain's false claim that Obama would raise taxes on 23 million small businesses
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SUMMARY: Washingtonpost.com's The Trail blog, CNN, and CBSNews.com each repeated Sen. John McCain's false claim that "[i]f you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator [Barack] Obama is going to raise your tax rates." In fact, Obama has proposed rolling back President Bush's tax cuts only on "people who are making 250,000 dollars a year or more"; according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, only 481,000 small businesses fall into the tax brackets that would be affected by those increases.
On July 7, washingtonpost.com's The Trail, CNN, and CBSNews.com each repeated Sen. John McCain's assertion during a Denver town hall meeting earlier that day that -- "If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator [Barack] Obama is going to raise your tax rates" -- without noting that the claim is false. In fact, Obama has proposed rolling back President Bush's tax cuts only on "people who are making 250,000 dollars a year or more"; according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small-business income, 481,000, not 23 million, of those returns are in the top two income tax brackets -- which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000.
As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, media outlets similarly uncritically reported McCain's false suggestion in a June 10 speech that Obama would raise taxes on 21.6 million sole proprietorships filing under the individual income taxes.
In his July 7 entry on The Trail blog, Post staff writer Michael D. Shear reported that "McCain's speech seemed to contain more applause lines and sharper jabs at his opponent." Shear then quoted McCain's assertion, "Senator Obama's tax increases will hurt the economy even more, and destroy jobs across this country. ... If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates."
Likewise, during the July 7 edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips noted that "in his speech, McCain also took aim at his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama." Phillips then aired McCain's comment, "Senator Obama's tax increases will hurt the economy even more, and destroy jobs across the country. If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates."
Further, in a July 7 post on the CBSNews.com blog From the Road, John Bentley wrote: "One of the cornerstones of McCain's plan is investment and tax breaks for small businesses, something he accuses his opponent of opposing." Bentley went on to quote McCain's assertion, "If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Sen. Obama is going to raise your tax rates."
Neither Shear nor Phillips nor Bentley noted that McCain's claim is false.
From the July 7 post on The Trail:
And McCain's speech seemed to contain more applause lines and sharper jabs at his opponent.
"Senator Obama's tax increases will hurt the economy even more, and destroy jobs across this country," he said. "If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates."
McCain has also moved to strengthen his organization on the ground in the 50 states, where supporters have been concerned that Sen. Barack Obama is particularly strong.
Over the weekend, Schmidt made veteran GOP operative Mike DuHaime the campaign's political and field director, putting him in charge of the regional campaign managers that had been semi-autonomous until now.
From the 1 p.m. ET hour of the July 7 edition of CNN Newsroom:
PHILLIPS: Now, fixing the economy, it's John McCain's focus as he campaigns today in Colorado. The Republican presidential candidate launched his so-called "Jobs First" program a short time ago in a speech in Denver seen live right here on CNN.
McCain says that his program will focus on small businesses. And in his speech, McCain also took aim at his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.
McCAIN [video clip]: Senator Obama's tax increases will hurt the economy even more, and destroy jobs across the country. If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates. If you have an investment for your child's education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, he's going to raise your taxes.
PHILLIPS: Well, McCain's economic plan also includes a promise to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term, if he's elected.
What words pop into your mind when you think of John McCain and Barack Obama? That's a question that pollsters put to 2,000 people. In the Associated Press/Yahoo! News survey, nearly one in five respondents blurted out "old" as their image of McCain, and "outsider" or "change" when it comes to Obama.
From Bentley's July 7 post on From the Road:
One of the cornerstones of McCain's plan is investment and tax breaks for small businesses, something he accuses his opponent of opposing.
"If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Sen. Obama is going to raise your tax rates. If you have an investment for your child's education or own a mutual fund or a stock in a retirement plan, he is going to raise your taxes. He will raise estate taxes to 45%. I propose to cut them to 15%. His plan will hurt the American worker and family. It will hurt the economy and cost us jobs," McCain will say today, according to excerpts released by the campaign. "At a time of increasing gas and food prices, American families need tax relief and I, not my opponent, will deliver it."
He will also continue to try and distance himself from President Bush, accusing both him and Congress of wasteful spending.
The McBush economy will always stink because they cut taxes; and primarily for the wealthy. Cutting taxes equals less federal revenue equals less money for infrastructure, less money to pay for Iraq & Afghanistan, less money for social security and medicare. McBushCo has no real idea how to reduce the price of gasoline except some vague rhetoric.
The large multinational corporations have operated without paying their fair share of taxes for years and suffer no penalty for setting up offshore hq for tax avoidance, for shipping jobs overseas, for violating environmental standards. McBush has some nerve talking about job destruction. Grr.
Don't forget the value of the dollar. It dropped 41% against the euro during Bush's watch. Our dollar sucks so bad that oil countries are switching to the euro which is further eroding the dollar's value.
And inflation. He's gonna beat Carter in that department too. We've pretty much hit double digit inflation in the food department...
History News Network’s poll of 109 historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002804
Pretty stong article. Thanks for the link.
BTW - as to history's "liberal bias" ;) it's interesting to note that Buchanan, Pierce and Johnson were all DEMOCRATS. (Filmore was a Whig, which means (basically) that he was a Republican)
Of course, the others were all Democrats at a time when Democrats more resembled modern day REPUBLICANS, but that's a different story.
BTW - as to history's "liberal bias" ;) it's interesting to note that Buchanan, Pierce and Johnson were all DEMOCRATS. (Filmore was a Whig, which means (basically) that he was a Republican)
Of course, the others were all Democrats at a time when Democrats more resembled modern day REPUBLICANS, but that's a different story.
In defense of these men, they all served either directly before or after the Civil War, a time when the country was more divided than any other time in our history - even today. It's a miracle they could get ANYTHING done in such a political climate.
I watched "All the President's Men" the other day, and felt sad for what we've lost. The idea of today's journalists digging into a story of government corruption with that much tenacity feels like a remote fantasy. Bush has done much worse than anything Nixon did, and the Press has, for the most part, looked the other way. It's obscene.
Wow. They even managed to dig up another 2 million businesses to lie about. It used to be 21 million.
The funny thing is, the amount they increased it by is over 4 times as many businesses that would actually be affected.
I need help here... It could be that I am just ignorant, but would somebody please come to my assistance.
If there are 23,000,000 small business owners in this country, that means that one in every 13 people, man, woman, and child, owns a small business. That just seems to defy logic to me, unless I completely misunderstand the definition of a "small business."
HELP!!
I need help here... It could be that I am just ignorant, but would somebody please come to my assistance.
If there are 23,000,000 small business owners in this country, that means that one in every 13 people, man, woman, and child, owns a small business. That just seems to defy logic to me, unless I completely misunderstand the definition of a "small business."
HELP!!
The Small Business Administration figures out how many small businesses there are by counting individual tax entities with sales below a certain number. Many small businesspeople actually run more than one tax entity, so there is no direct one-to-one correlation between the number of small businesses and the general population.
Mary59.
You have a great idea,just remeber that I and I alone invented sea water.
I think I understand McCain's comment. He simply spoke oddly:
"If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer"
He means that if you are one of the 23 small business owners, AND happen to be one of the small number of individual rate payers. As a similar example:
"If you are one of the 300 million Americans who is a serial killer"
See, that wouldn't imply that all 300 million Americans are serial killers. Only filthy liberals would think that.
Based on the spam emails promising that I can "earn millions" on the Internet, there may be 23,000,000 "Small Business Owners" out their earning over $250,000. And its conceivable (not) that the number could well be growing day by day.
Excuse me while I answer the Barrister in Nigeria that has a 6 figure Cashier's Check just waiting for me.
Why is it that the Democrats seem to favor taxing capital gains and stock dividends much more than Republicans? These days all retirement plans depend on a healthy and growing stock market. Why shouldn't the tax code encourage the small investors to save and invest in stocks? For instance by exempting from taxation long term(may be even 3 years+) capital gains and dividends of less than $10K annually; or increasing the capital loss write off to $6000 annually per person instead of $3,000 per return?
This could also reduce market volatility which is currently mainly benefitting the super rich Hedge Fund investors.
Such a tax policy may be calibrated so it will be revenue neutral while it could help increase the savings rate which is what we need right now.
I look at JohnnyMac sometimes and he gives me the impression that when he got up that day,he says to himself what the H#@* did I get myself into.
Text messaging,Blogging,"The Internets",Using a computer.Sometimes I can't even hold a microphone correctly.
When the press repeats RNC lies and propoganed, without evaluating the evidense, they are misinforming voters, not informing them. I believe the press knows exactlly what they are doing. It is just too common an event to be anything except bias.
jerry
Just more proof of how biased the news media and the AP are.
People are so tired of McCain getting a free ride and being
touted by these inadequate, distorting, prejudiced reporters.
It happens over and over, yet the above people continue to
keep their jobs.
Whatever happened to truth and integrity?
MSNBC has always been biased, but now CNN is going the same
route.
Viewers, readers, we should boycott them and smother them with
e mails and complaints.
History shows that tax cuts on the rich actually increase tax revenue. Kennedy and Reagan had similar tax cuts. Right now the top 1% account for 40% of tax revenue. At its highest point in history the tax rate on the rich was 70%. With that tax rate the top 1% accounted for 16% of revenue. So if you want to raise taxes on the rich go ahead but more of the tax burden will be on the shoulders of the middle class.