Bush Lies Once Again About Kerry And Taxes

by Steve

The latest Bush lie to get debunked, this time by the Bush-friendly National Federation of Independent Business of all groups, is the claim by Bush that John Kerry’s rollback of tax cuts for those making over $200,000 a year would be a tax increase on small businesses.

"Taxing the rich?" Bush said during a recent White House forum where his guests included the owners of a hair salon, a convenience store franchise and an office supply dealer.

"When you're running up individual tax rates, you're taxing small businesses," he said.

Except, as usual with Bush, this is a lie.

But data from the Internal Revenue Service and the Census Bureau suggest the vast majority of small businesses provide their owners with incomes far below the $200,000-a-year mark where Kerry says he would begin eliminating tax cuts.

The only problem is that most companies in the small-business world are so-called Main Street businesses with 10 or fewer employees, including restaurants, small retailers and small manufacturers, Census and IRS data show.

Their profits fall into a median range of $40,000 and $60,000, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, a leading advocate of the small-business community. That puts them just above U.S. median household income of $42,409.

"These are not rich people," said NFIB researcher Bruce Phillips. "Changing the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, for the most part, doesn't apply to our membership."

Just another Bush lie, this time brought to you by the IRS and NFIB, two places that Bush could have checked with before lying.