RNC's Halloween tricks (10/31)

By Bryan Keefer

The Republican National Committee has debuted some scary spin just in time for Halloween.

In a new Flash movie the RNC suggests that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle will raise taxes by $9,961 dollars for an average family. The movie ends by urging voters "Don't be Tricked. Vote Republican." The only people being tricked, however, will be those taking the RNC's claim at face value.

The Flash movie, which features Hitchcock-like music and images of Daschle handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, cites three sources for its assertion. The first, "Meet the Press" on October 6, 2002 includes a statement by Daschle that he opposes making the 2001 tax cut permanent (most provisions of the cut expire in 2010). The second citation is to a report [28K PDF] of the Joint Committee on Taxation which estimates the cost of the tax cut (not including interest costs). The third refers to estimates from the US Census on the number of households and families in the United States. The number was apparently obtained by dividing the cost of the provisions of the cut which have not yet gone into effect (about $1.046 trillion, not including interest) by the number of households in the United States (105.5 million). (The RNC did not return a call seeking comment).

That calculation is triply deceptive. First, there is the semantic problem of whether canceling the provisions of the tax cut which are scheduled to go into effect in future years amounts to a "tax raise". Rather than directly raising tax rates, the plan Daschle advocates would simply not reduce those rates. The RNC, however, just assumes that such a move constitutes raising taxes for the purposes of its argument without bothering to explain the details.

Second, the video badly distorts the timeframe of such a "tax raise." The video implies that it would be immediate. Since the tax cut phases in through 2010, such additional taxes would be paid over a span of eight years, rather than this coming April as the video seems to imply.

Finally, and most seriously, the RNC is distorting the meaning of "average family." The $9,961 number is an average per family, not what a family with an income near the median or average would receive. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, even after the tax cut is fully phased in 2010, a family in the middle 20% of the income distribution would receive an average annual reduction in taxes of approximately $562 (CBPP analyzed the Senate version of the tax cut, but the version which finally passed was very similar). Moreover, CBPP also notes in another publication that roughly 70 percent of the cuts benefiting middle-income taxpayers have already gone into effect. Since Daschle advocated freezing provisions of the tax cut not yet in place, these would not be affected by the "tax raise" the RNC claims he is in favor of. Middle-income families stand to lose far less than the RNC's misleading "average" if those provisions are frozen.

In its strategy, the RNC is echoing the phony logic of Tax Freedom Day , whose sponsors annually publish a number purporting to be the number of days which the average American must work in order to pay taxes. This number is calculated by adding up the year's tax receipts and then dividing by the estimated national income to arrive at what percentage of income is paid as taxes. In reality, however, the progressive nature of the tax system places a higher burden on those with larger incomes and a lower burden on those with lower incomes, causing the number to badly misrepresent the amount of taxes paid by middle-income Americans – just as the RNC is exaggerating the cost to middle-income households of freezing the tax cut.

The RNC's distortions on the eve of the election are especially frightening. Let's hope their budget tricks don't fool any voters on the eve of the election.

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10/31/2002 12:48:35 PM EST |

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