Yet Another Lie

As was shown on most of the evening newscasts and ad infinitum on the cable outlets, John McCain, in a speech at the National Small Business Summit this week, lobbed this accusation at Barack Obama:

Under Senator Obama's tax plan, Americans of every background would see their taxes rise: seniors, parents, small business owners, and just about everyone who has even a modest investment in the market.

But, economic analysts at the Tax Policy Center found this to be the case:

Families making between $37,595 and $66,354 of annual income with Obama would get an average tax cut of $1,042 per family while McCain’s tax cut for this group would be $319, the report states.

And from the WaPo:

An analysis of both campaigns proposals by the Washington-based, nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that for people with incomes between $66,354 and $111,645, Obama's proposals would cut their taxes by more than $1000, compared to around $300 under McCain's plan. But for Americans with incomes above $603,402, Obama would raise their taxes dramatically, by more than $115,000 a year, while McCain would cut them by $45,000.

"The Obama tax plan would make the tax system significantly more progressive by providing large tax breaks to those at the bottom of the income scale and raising taxes significantly on upper-income earners," the group concludes. "The McCain tax plan would make the tax system more regressive.... It would do so by providing relatively little tax relief to those at the bottom of the income scale while providing huge tax cuts to households at the very top of the income distribution."

And from the intro to the report itself, there's this:

The two candidates' plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain's tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.

Even if you share the opinion of CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, that people making in excess of $200,000 a year are somehow middle-class, McCain's plan still favors the "wealthy," whereas Obama holds true to his promise to alleviate the burden of working Americans.

UPDATE: In addition to the above revealing yet another lie by McCain '08, this quote from McCain '01 (explaining his opposition to the Bush tax cuts which McCain '08 now supports and wants to make permanent) reveals it's also yet another flip flop:

“I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.”

h/t: ThinkProgress