350 Tax Increases oh MY!

President Bush's latest attack ads falsely accuse Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator Kerry of voting to raise taxes 350 times during his tenure in the Senate. Bush's relentless barrage of half-truths and lies meant to scare middle America are simply not going to work. Any half-witted monkey, with an hour of free time and a congressional record could prove these latest accusations untrue.

Here's Michael Kinsley's take on the subject:

"The purpose of a phony statistic such as this one isn't to convince people of its own accuracy. The purpose is to trap your opponent in a discussion he doesn't want to have (in this case about his past votes on taxes), bog down the discussion in silly details that few people will follow, and leave a general impression that where there's smoke there must be fire. And certainly, if what matters to you above all else is paying fewer taxes, you'd be a fool to choose Kerry over Bush. But this isn't about taxes; it's about honesty. Honesty means more than factual accuracy, it means avoiding disingenuousness: not talking rot when you know it's rot.

......the first item asserts that "In 1995, Kerry Voted For [a] Resolution That Said Middle Class Tax Cuts Were Not Wise." This turns out to be a vote in the midst of that nearly forgotten frenzy, the Gingrich revolution. It was a vote against a particular tax cut of $700 billion, on a resolution declaring with almost tautological justice that subtracting $700 billion from revenue would make it harder to balance the budget. The resolution passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, but a decade later the Republican president uses it to tar his Democratic opponent.

The documentation on the GOP Web site about Kerry's supposed 350 votes to increase taxes lists only 67 votes "for higher taxes." Most of these are votes against a tax cut, not in favor of a tax increase. The 67 include nine votes listed twice, three listed three times, and two listed four times. The logic seems to be that if a bill contains more than one item (as almost all bills do), it counts as separate votes for or against each item. The Bush list also includes several series of sequentially numbered votes, which are procedural twists on the same bill. And there are votes on the identical issue in different years. The only tax increase on Bush's list (counted twice, but hey . . . ) is Kerry's support for Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan. That's the one that raised rates in the top bracket and led to a decade of such fabulous prosperity that even its most affluent victims ended up better off."

The President is completely distorting reality to serve his political goals and in doing so he is insulting our intelligence. I wonder why Pres. Bush is so scared to present the real facts about Senator Kerry's record?

Like Father Like Son!!