Gee, Maybe in Rossi’s Alternative Universe I’m Swimming in Dough Too

Republican’ts are one-track-minded in their determination to extend George W. Bush’s wasteful tax cuts to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. This despite ample evidence that extending those cuts beyond their planned 2010 limit would add more than $36 billion to the national deficit and that they failed as an engine of economic growth. But of course, if your goal is to bankrupt the federal government as a way to reduce or eliminate all social programs, then throwing money away to the rich makes sense.

And having to lie to voters doesn’t seem to bother Republican’ts one iota. Take the case of newly minted Washington senatorial candidate, two-time loser Dino Rossi. He contends that “the Obama administration’s plan to extend the cuts enjoyed by middle-income taxpayers, while repealing tax cuts for high-income households” amounts to a “class warfare program.” To prove this allegation, and win votes away from his considerably more skilled opponent, incumbent Senator Patty Murray, Rossi contends “that 2 1/2 million people in Washington benefit from the 2001 Bush tax cuts.”

As Think Progress explains, however, Rossi’s statement is baloney:

There are about 6.7 million people in Washington state, so for Rossi’s number to be accurate, he’s either claiming that [President] Obama and Murray want to raise taxes on people that they don’t, or he is claiming that more than one-third of the state’s population is making more than $200,000 per year. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, there are 105,209 households in the state that would be affected by the expiration of the Bush tax cuts (or about 1.6 percent of the total population). So Rossi inflated his state’s wealthy population by 24 times. Also, as The Wonk Room explains, Rossi’s push to extend the tax cuts for the rich would definitely help one Washingtonian: Dino Rossi.

Calling Dino Rossi and others on such falsehoods is responsible journalism. Republican’ts expect reporters to merely write down what they say, no matter how misleading, and never raise uncomfortable questions about the facts at issue. But when politicians lie so baldly to win office, they deserve to be called on it. Each and every time.

READ MORE: “Jared Bernstein, White House Economist, Throws Cold Water On Bush Tax Cuts Compromise,” by Sam Stein (The
Huffington Post).