In last night’s debate, President Bush stated:
He talks about middle-class tax cuts. That’s exactly where the tax cuts went. Most of the tax cuts went to low- and middle-income Americans. And now the tax code is more fair. 20% of the upper-income people pay about 80% of the taxes in America today because of how we structured the tax cuts.
FactCheck.org responds this morning that “Bush could hardly have been farther off base when he said most of his tax cuts ‘went to low- and middle-income Americans.’ That’s just not true”:
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center recently calculated that most of the tax cuts — 53% to be exact — went to the highest -earning 10% of US individuals and families.Those most affluent Americans got an average tax cut of $7,661.
And as for the “low- and middle-income Americans” Bush mentioned — the bottom 60% of individuals and families got only 13.7% of the tax cuts, according to the Tax Policy Center, a far cry from “most” of the cuts as claimed by Bush.
The President came closer to the mark, but still got it wrong, when he said in the same breath that the top 20% of earners pay “about 80% of the taxes in America today.” That’s incorrect. In fact, as we reported only that morning, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the top 20% now pay 63.5% of the total federal tax burden, which includes income taxes, payroll taxes and other federal levies. It’s true that the top 20% pays nearly 81% of all federal income taxes, but the president spoke more expansively of “taxes in America,” not just income taxes.
3 responses to “FactCheck.org Assails Bush’s Tax Claims in Last Night’s Debate”
Who did this stupid math. The poor pay not taxes except payroll. They get more back than they receive. The middle class got $1,000 per kid. That reduces a $8,000 tax bill to $6,000 if you have two kids. That is 25%. It would be nice if you so called tax experts would make some serious effort to explain these matters so the public could understand.
But what’s the middle class? Most of the people in the range between the top 5% and top 10% would view themselves as “middle class.” Does middle class end with $100,000 annual income? 200,000?
Ray must be kidding himself in thinking that all middle class people have kids.
As for attacking these profs for using “stupid math” I learned that 8,000 -2,000 = 6,000 when I was in first grade.
Why don’t you learn about tax shelters, corporation tax, and off shore buisness taxes before you criticize these people who spend their life on the subject.
Jackass