Sean Hannity sought to bolster Newt Gingrich's assertion that “it will be a disaster” for the country if President Obama is re-elected, by misleading about the Congressional Budget Office's recent budget analysis. Hannity argued that CBO, which released its 10-year economic outlook on January 31, reported that if Obama wins a second term, "[t]axes will go up 30 percent."

But that's not at all what CBO reported. The budget office, working under the assumption that current laws will “remain unchanged,” meaning that all sunset provisions currently in law go into effect (including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year) -- then revenues would increase by 30 percent.

As CBO explained:

Much of the projected decline in the deficit occurs because, under current law, revenues will rise considerably as a share of GDP -- from 16.3 percent in 2012 to 20.0 percent in 2014 and 21.0 percent in 2022. In particular, between 2012 and 2014, revenues in CBO's baseline shoot up by more than 30 percent, mostly because of the recent or scheduled expirations of tax provisions, such as those that lower income tax rates and limit the reach of the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and the imposition of new taxes, fees, and penalties that are scheduled to go into effect.

Hannity often uses misleading information to support various assertions about Obama, especially when it comes to the economy. On his Wednesday night show, for example, he claimed that one cannot “make the case” that the economy has improved during Obama's term -- when, in fact, plenty of evidence exists to make that case. But to Hannity, who has vowed that this is the “year to defeat Obama and save America,” this is just another way of attacking Obama.