The Washington Post says George W. Bush is hawking an alternative statistical analysis of his tax plan which says that only 22% of his tax cut will go to the top 1% of earners as opposed to the 43% number which Democrats have been citing. As the Post notes, much of the difference is due to the fact that Bush’s new analysis doesn’t figure in the repeal of the estate tax (also known as the ‘death tax’ to many Republican whackos) or a number of other cuts which only kick in after 2006. And of course pretty much all of the estate tax repeal benefits go to the very wealthy.
Dishonest numbers aside though, this is a very positive development for opponents of Bush’s plan. Very positive. Why? Simple. Because this is playing ball entirely on the Democrats’ turf. As any Republican strategist will tell you, Republicans don’t win tax debates with arguments over distributional equity. A sign of how they’re getting dragged off message is that Bush’s crew is getting into almost daily dust-ups with Talking Points’ friends at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and Citizens for Tax Justice.
Second of all, to be frank, Bush’s numbers are completely bogus. And I don’t just mean the standard sense in which everyone’s numbers are a bit different. I mean he’s not including the estate tax! What’s that about? This isn’t fuzzy math. It’s bull$&%@ math. And very easily exposed as such.
Therefore, not only is Bush starting to fight this out on unfriendly territory, he’s also starting the fight with a batch of numbers that are transparently bogus. So before we even get to the argument over equity we’re going to have a sub-argument about why Bush is trying to pass off these phony numbers.
P.S. If you’re not bored to tears by this tax stuff, check out this new fact sheet from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities which notes how the numbers Bush himself is relying on are now showing that the true cost of the plan is roughly $2 trillion.
