Monday, April 19, 2004

Duchess Note ... As always the Bush Administration [ie: thoroughly corrupt empire] is lying through their teeth [AGAIN & AGAIN] in many of their campaign statements. The true facts are located on a very reliable website called "Annenberg Political Fact Check". Below is the latest:

Treasury Tax Expert To Bush ... Clinton's Increase WASN'T The Biggest! Study published by Bush's Treasury Department contradicts Bush's campaign.
ANNENBERG POLITICAL FACT CHECK
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=173

Now comes a thorough study of every tax bill enacted since 1940, showing that the Clinton tax increase was indeed large, but not the largest. A tax increase in 1942 boosted federal revenues by 71%, for example, as the US geared up for war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Measured in inflation-adjusted 1992 dollars, Roosevelt's wartime increase amounted to $73 billion a year, while Clinton's increase averaged $35 billion a year (average for the first two years.)

The study said that inflation-adjusted "constant dollars" is probably only the second -best measure of the size of a tax increase. "The single best measure for most purposes is probably the revenue effect as a percentage of GDP." That's Gross Domestic Product, the way we gauge the size of the economy. Clinton's tax increase isn't the biggest by that "best" measure, either. In the period since 1968, the study said, "the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was the biggest increase." That was the tax increase signed by Ronald Reagan, rescinding some of the effects of his huge tax cut passed the year before. That 1982 tax increase only slightly exceeded Clinton's in inflation-adjusted dollars ($37 billion a year vs.. $32 billion) but it was much bigger in relation to the size of the economy. The '82 increase amounted to 4.6% of GDP (average for the first two years) while Clinton's was 2.7%.

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