Rebuttal to Crooks and Liars Propaganda

The left wing blog Crooks and Liars posted this article for Tax day called "10 Republican Lies for Tax Day" and my leftist buddy sent it to me claiming that there was finally some sanity out there. I went through the 10 lies one by one for him as follows:

Claimed Lie 1
Taxes on small businesses. The government considers these examples below as small businesses (all are over $250K per year):

You can go here for the complete list

Crop production of all types — $750,000
Animal production except for cattle & chicken/eggs — $750,000
Cattle feedlots — $2.5M
Chicken/egg production — $12.5M
Forestry & logging — $7M
Fishing — $4M
Irrigation, sewage, water supplies — $7M
Housing construction — $33.5M
Heavy and civil engineering construction — $33.5M
Dredging and cleanup — $20M
Concrete, framing, and other housing contractors — $14M
Car dealers — $23-29M
RV, motorcycle, & boat dealers — $7M
Furniture, hardware, clothing & sporting good stores — $7M
Electronic stores — $9M
Supermarkets, gas stations & department stores — $27M
Pharmacies — $7M

The CNN report referenced at Crooks & Liars claims that there are 6 million small businesses and is off by at least 75% as they only took people who filed certain schedules in their personal tax returns (deceitful as not all small businesses are Sub S, or sole proprietors). Here are the numbers from the US census which show that there are over 25 million small businesses in America in 2004. America already has the 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world and Obama will eventually be compelled to increase that rate.

Claimed Lie 2
Anyone that argues that estate taxes are fair is a communist in my opinion. America was not founded on communist values. Every penny of the money confiscated by estate taxes has already been taxed at least once by federal and local governments. Estate taxes are nothing but redistribution of wealth. If you believe that they are just, then we cannot argue further because I do not and never will. If you want to live under communism, move to Russia, Cuba or Venezuela.

Claimed Lie 3
I've never heard any of the conservative pundits say that 40% pay no taxes. The figure quoted is that 40% pay no federal income taxes. This data comes directly from the IRS.You can download the spreadsheet (go to row 174 and read the truth from the government agency that collects the taxes). Per the IRS in 2005, the most recent data available from the IRS, 50% of the federal tax returns are responsible for 96.93% of the total federal taxes paid. It's true that most everyone pays other taxes such as sales taxes, Social Security, Medicare etc. Obama's claimed tax cuts are not cuts but tax credits (there's a huge difference and for those of you who voted for Obama, you can read about the difference here). When you give federal tax money back to people in the form of tax credits and those people don't pay any federal taxes that is called welfare. In effect you are giving them back all or a portion of what they have paid in to Social Security and Medicare.

Claimed Lie 4
Tax cuts have increased federal revenues EVERY TIME THEY HAVE BEEN INSTITUTED in America. Crooks & Liars uses an unrelated argument that since tax rates were raised by Clinton in the 1990s and revenue increased that this cannot be true. Any high school educated person could see the lack of logic here. Just because revenues increased with tax rate increases once doesn't disprove the record of history that tax reductions have increased government revenues every time they have been instituted. Here is a real researched article from a real economist that illustrates.

Claimed Lie 5
The GOP did not show fiscal discipline during the time that they controlled Congress under Bush and I don't think that anyone on the right is stating this as fact. O'reilly, Hannity, Ingraham, Bennett, Prager, Hewitt, Medved and Limbaugh all speak about this as the failing of the GOP. So who's the liar? The part of the graph that Crooks & Liars left out shows the Obama addition to that with his Porkulus and Omnibus bills. The CBO, a non-partisan group, projects the debt growing by $4.4T over the next 4 years under Obama and a Democrat Congress. This is $200B more than the total debt added from 2001 - 2008 under Bush. Both parties have grown debt and grown government. Clinton reduced the debt in his 2nd term. This coincides with the time frame that the GOP took the majority in Congress (1994) and prior to that debt was rising. The falling debt can be attributed to balanced budget initiatives, Contract with America, huge defense spending cuts and increased revenue. Conservatism is not a value held by any political party it is what our country was founded on and stands for, among other things, small central government and individual freedom. Leftists like to intermingle Conservative and Republican as if they are one and the same. This is not the case.

Claimed Lie 6
To quote Crooks & Liars "President Obama whose stimulus plan delivered the largest two-year tax cut in history." This is projecting tax cuts (and they are credits not cuts - there is a huge difference) which haven't happened yet and it is a 2 year snapshot and doesn't include the future tax hikes that will be necessary to support the spending levels over that time period. Obama has already stated that he will let the Bush tax cuts die in 2010. This will result in a tax INCREASE of 50% for the lowest income brackets and 13% increase for the highest.
2003 tax rate table






2000 tax rate table


This will also cause increases on dividends (by as much as 3960%) and capital gains (at least 33%). By the way, any person that holds equities receives capital gains and dividends regardless of their annual income. In 2003, Bush cut the marginal tax rates as follows lowest bracket by 33% from 15% to 10% up to the first $7K, next bracket up by 8.8% up to $26,250, the next bracket by 11% up to $63K, the next bracket by 9.6% up to $143K, the top bracket by 11%. Note that the tax cuts for the rich were the same or less than those for the poor, contrary to the claim that Bush's cuts were for the rich.

In 1981, when Ronald Reagan took office, the top marginal rate was 70%. He dropped that rate to 28% (a decrease of 60%) and government revenues doubled. He also started the U.S. on a 25 year growth cycle never seen before in American history.

Obama has increased federal taxes on tobacco products by 158% which affects people in the under $250K per year income range. His cap and trade proposal will increase gasoline taxes across the board. Anything that he does with health care will also require tax increases to those making less than $250K per year.

Claimed Lie 7
The depression ended because WWII production geared up and put people back to work (when stuff gets blown up, it needs to be replaced). Just ask your Mom, Dad, Grandma or Grandpa. This occurred even before the U.S. entered the war. FDR's policies (government sponsored Ponzi schemes) are finally failing after 70 years. Read your Social Security statement. Mine says "In 2017 we will begin paying more in benefits than we collect in taxes. Without changes, by 2041 the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted and there will be enough money to pay only about 78 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits". Medicare's outlook is even bleaker and is projected to be bankrupt in 2016. We just threw Bernie Madoff in jail for doing the same thing that our government is doing as created by Democrat hero FDR. Ask yourself with the New Deal's and the later Great Society's "war on poverty" why all of this money (over $11T in all) has been spent and we still have poverty? Like the bailouts and the stimulus's, this is not working.

Claimed Lie 8
Cap and trade has a track record in Europe and has raised the cost of generating energy. It is a tax scheme that we don't need. If you think that it won't cost everyone money, including those that make less than $250K per year, then you have no common sense. My electric company claims that cap and trade could raise electric rates to its customers by 4x - 6x. Man made global warming is a hoax. Cap and Trade schemes are using man made global warming as the justification to create new taxes. We don't need and can't afford cap and trade taxes.

Claimed Lie 9
If Obama removes the tax deduction for charity from the wealthy, the wealthy will donate less. This is pure common sense and doesn't require any analysis. As the tax code exists, we can donate things that have appreciated (e.g. stocks, bonds, art, real estate) and receive the full value as a deduction from our taxable income without claiming the appreciation as income. Removing this deduction will remove the incentive to donate.

When I purchased my first home, I compared my out of pocket monthly expense for a mortgage to that of renting. I could afford a higher out of pocket expense for the mortgage as the interest deduction would make up for the difference. Do you think that if the government eliminated the tax deduction for mortgage interest that home ownership would decrease?

Tax policy drives monetary behavior.

Claimed Lie 10
This is just more class warfare. Per the IRS spreadsheet, the top 1% of earners pay 39.38% of the total federal tax burden and the bottom 50% of earners pay less than 4% of the total federal tax bill. A linear (and more fair) tax situation would call for 1% of the earners to pay 1% of the total tax burden and 50% of the earners to pay 50% of the tax burden. In New York City, approximately 41,000 (less then 0.5%) persons pay 50% of the City tax burden. Heaven help the other 8.26 million people if those 41,000 decide to leave town. The so called rich are taxed more than enough already and it's time that the other 99% pick up the slack. As Joe Biden says, "it is your patriotic duty".

When you go out to dinner with other people do you negotiate who should pay what percentage of the bill based upon their household income? If so, don't invite me out to dinner.