New GOP ads recycle old, debunked claims about Obama's tax

Summary
Republicans are misrepresenting Obama's tax proposals right down to the bitter end. New radio ads from the McCain campaign and a TV spot from the pro-Republican group Let Freedom Ring are targeting voters nationwide with some of the same tax deceptions we've been hearing all fall, rolled in a bundle and flung through the airwaves. One of the radio ads features Hank Williams Jr., the other Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But new packaging doesn't make the charges any less false.

* Taxes wouldn't have gone up on "families" making as little as $42,000 under the budget resolution passed last spring, as the Charlie Crist ad says. Try $90,000 for a typical family of four. And anyway, that measure doesn't at all resemble what Obama's actually proposing to do.

* The Let Freedom Ring ad claimed that Obama has "voted to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire," meaning "our income taxes will actually go up." But Obama only voted to let some of the tax cuts expire, and at any rate nobody's taxes are going up as a result of that vote. The group yanked this ad off the air rather than try to defend it.

* Echoing a recent McCain theme, Crist says, "McCain knows that people don't want to 'spread the wealth,' " condemning Obama's use of the phrase when he talked to "Joe the Plumber." Actually, McCain has supported taxing high earners more than low earners. Not so long ago McCain said, "Wealthy people can afford [to pay] more." Obama's tax plan would "spread the wealth" more than McCain's, but it's not as though McCain wants to do away with the progressive tax system we currently have.

McCain-Palin 2008/RNC Radio Ad: Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Williams Jr.: Hello, this is Hank Williams Jr. When Barack Obama said folks like you and me were bitter, and clinging to guns and religion, I knew he just doesn’t understand small-town America. We love our God, and we love our guns, especially handed down from our grandfather. We resent it when liberals like Obama question our way of life. Don’t be bitter. Vote McCain.

Announcer: Congressional liberals want to increase spending by nearly a trillion dollars. And raise taxes on folks making $42,000 a year to pay for it. Congressional liberals call it “taxing the rich.” We call it “out of touch.” No wonder they criticize our values, but expect us to accept theirs. Congressional liberals: Out of touch with our America.

Say It Ain't So!
The Hank Williams ad says that "congressional liberals want to increase spending by nearly a trillion dollars." (The other ad uses almost identical wording.) In this case, "congressional liberals" seem to be standing in for Obama, judging from the back-up material sent to us by the McCain team. And this is an old claim, based on the McCain campaign's estimate that the cost of Obama's various proposals would be $860 billion (the ad rounds the figure up rather, um, liberally).

It's certainly true that Obama proposes large new spending programs, while McCain proposes large but unspecified spending cuts. But the trillion-dollar estimate (which would be spread over four years) doesn't factor in any of Obama's proposed savings or cuts. For example, he proposes to eliminate $15 billion per year in subsidies given to health insurance companies for Medicare Advantage programs, which are insurance plans offered by private companies as an alternative to traditional government-sponsored Medicare.

Outside analysts like the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget have found that neither Obama nor McCain would come close to balancing the federal budget without additional spending cuts or tax increases that they have yet to specify.

–by Viveca Novak and Jess Henig