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First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Who'd give more to the middle class?

Posted: Friday, August 08, 2008 11:49 AM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
McCain
claims in an ad released today that "Obama voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000. He promises more taxes on small business, seniors, your life savings, your family."

But when it comes to promises, it's worth pointing out that, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center's analysis of both candidates' proposed plans, Obama would cut taxes for those making in the range of $38,000 to $66,000 three to almost eight times more than McCain would.

Under Obama's plan, according to the center, by 2009, those making $37,595 would see an average increase in their income of 3.6%, or a tax cut of $892; those making an average of $66,354 would see an increase in their income of 2.4%, or a tax cut of $1,042.

On the other hand, Under McCain's plan, those making $37,595 would see an increase in their income of only about 0.5%, or $113 tax cut; those making $66,354 would see only an increase of 0.7% in their income, or a tax break of $319.

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We all knew he was a liar. I am just glad that cable news is now researching his dubious claims about Obama in his ads.
thank you.  Now, please put this on the front page of msnbc.oom
The sad news is that people belive McCain's lies. I just read the book on Karl Rove and he was nothing but lies. I do not think the news should print the ad with lies in it. I hope McCAin gets his tail beat.
So you're saying John McCain's a liar.  Tell me something I don't know.
enough said...
So then. the header for this should read, 'Obama would give more to the middle class'.

WHY ARE YOU AFRAID OF JOHN MCCAIN, MEDIA?!?

Obama '08
This should be on the front page!  The heck with the Olympic coverage - the taxpayers deserve the TRUTH!
Who'd "give" more? Give? The government doesn't give anyone anything, unless they take it from someone else. I'm not sure we can afford Obama and all his "giving".
*stands and applauds*

Thank you for putting a spotlight on the latest RIDICULOUS claim from the McCain campaign. However, a more accurate headline would be:

McCain Campaign Lies AGAIN!

I don't want to be greedy or anything, but can we get someone - oh say a JOURNALIST - to mention this BIG LIE on the air?


How about also pointing out that this is just the LATEST in a LONG STRING of LIES from the McCain campaign?

America would be very grateful if John "Maverick" McCain, the Straight TAlker was held to same standards as his opponent.

(Did I mention that John McCain is a liar? Just checking.)
Woop-de-doo.  $300 will buy about 6 weeks of gas in my car.  Gee, thanks. lol  At least the candidates are being only slightly dishonest this time.  It is a tax cut, just not one that helps at all.  Let's face it, there are no tax cuts on the horizon from either candidate because the national debt, social security, and the war are consuming all your tax dollars. Tax cut?  Forget about it.
Truth > rhetoric, my friends
People are soon going to catch on that McBush's ads are consistently lies and will no longer give them any credibility.  This guy's just throwing crap out there and hoping something sticks without any regard for accuracy or truth.
I am so sick and tired of John McCain and his bunch of lies.  What respect I had for the man if any is long gone....Does he have no shame...What a disgrace....he is such a whiner.....
What's important in any society is that people that make use of the benefits the governemnt supplies to them also pay a part of costs for those benefits. That would stop this nonsense of people 'voting themselves a raise'.
thank you for taking the time to report the facts.
McCain is confused on everything.
Are you confused yet? John McCain confused on Taxes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cFbJFYKkQQ&eurl=http://www.jedreport.com/

Obama Will Raise Your Taxes:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/14/3111/53739

Tax Progressivity Discussed on CNN !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbxpMw4mco&eurl=http://www.daily

Obama should have a response ad that that flat out call McCain for what he is - A LIAR.  He has been peddling lies about Obama and his stance on taxes for over a month.  Those lies have long since been debunked, yet he continued to say them in his speeches and the media let him get away with it.  But to put those lies into a commercial is ridiculous.  McCain's tired poltics of misrepresenting Obama's positions need to stop.  Why can't he run a positive campaign?  Why can't he speak to his own positions?  Oh that's right, because he has none that are popular with the American public.
The GOP will lie about ANYTHING
The Iraq war, the economy, you name it..

The upper 5% of the income earners in the country pay 60% of the taxes today. The bottom 50% wage earners pay 5% of the income tax burden. And Obama says this is unfair and the top 5% should pay more?
That's it, Johnny! LIE! Lie like a rug if you want Bush's job, and lick Rove's shoes.
Gasp! MSM criticism of its maverick? Who would have thunk it?

I wonder if this criticism will be repeated in primetime on endless loop? Or was the MSM hoping this criticism would get buried in Olympic coverage?

Methinks the latter. If it were Obama, a whole hour of Meet the Press would be devoted to this "falsehood."
McThuselah provides more “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”.

(McThuselah knew Disraeli and Mark Twain personally.)
Why no mention of the proposed increase (doubling) in the gas tax?  This has PASSED the house committee on transportation.  This is being pushed by WASHINGTON lobbyists of the construction industry.

You see the government gives with one hand but takes back with the other.  How else can it finance itself?
Keep them honest First Read - keep them BOTH honest!  Don't let them scam the American public who refuse to look at the issues facing them!
The dynamic which is amazing me is that there is fast becoming almost no tall tale McCain can tell which even fazes the reader/listener.  The guy could literally run ads claiming the sky is not blue and I am not sure that it would much rattle anyone's cage.  Apathy?  Desensitization?  The psychological aspect is fascinating.

BTW, rent Thank You for Smoking sometime if you want to see a very funny movie re same themes.

Have a good weekend all.
Ok this is a start but its not enough!! MSNBC must stop allowing the republican from putting lies out on your site, it cheapens the whole election prosess as well as cheapens MSNBC as a media outlet. if MSNBC continues to allow the McCain's ads to be posted on this site with out checking the information, making sure it is CORRECT MSNBC is no better than FOX. i would respect MSNBC more if you did not put ads like this on your site because you knew they are lies!!!
and as a media outlet there must be checks and balances for the media, that is the only thing that seperates us from the propiganda that the communist use to put out, but i know that its all about ratings!! you at MSNBC want ratings, morning joe, pat bucannon, and chris mathews, its all about ratings,
watler cronkrite and the other media pioneers were not about ratings, they were about delevering news and artical that the american people could trust. your at MSNBC are becoming the garbage of the media and like a said in a early post,
GROW A SET OF BALLS STOP THIS AND STOP MAKING THIS WHOLE PROSESS ABOUT RATINGS!!!! ITS NOT ABOUT RATINGS, ITS ABOUT DELEVERING NEWS PEOPLE CAN TRUST, NOT TO JUST GET RATINGS!!!
I would like to make another comment. I am an Obama fan and watch all the networks to see what is being said. I get so angry at Hannity that I get sick to my stomach. He was doing his usual lying and bashing of Obama last night and would ask an Obama supporter her opion and when she tried to state it, he would interrupt and call on the MCCAin supporter. Why does America allow this trash to be on television. So much for free speech. Bet this will not make Hannity and Colmes nor the newspaper.
McCain understands that the rich need their money more than the poor..that's why they are poor..
The rich have more things to do with their money, i.e. more things to buy...
The poor have less needs so they have less things to do with their money, i.e. less to buy...
The only thing wrong with the above analogy is there are far more poor people that vote than rich people so...let's give Johnny Boy a tax break this year...by keeping him right where he is....and he might just reap the benefits of Obama's tax outline too.
Trying to be objective here, but the ad seems to completely misrepresent the truth. Obama wants to raise taxes, but nowhere has there been talk of it coming to folks making under 50k. It's rather silly...

http://www.political-buzz.com/
This just in!
Another memo leaked on McCain's general election strategy.

1. Call Obama an elitist
2. When he insists he grew up poor with a single mom in Hawaii, call him "exotic"
3. When he says exotic is a code word, say he is playing the race card.
4. When he moves to the center and tries to make non-partisan deals with us, call him a flip-flopper. When he doesn't, call him an extreme left-wing liberal.
5. When he draws a big crowd, call him a celebrity
6. When he gives a good speech, say he's too slick or something dated like "snake oil salesman".
7. When he ignores us and turns the other cheek, say he thinks he's Jesus!
John McCain needs to grab some courage and run on what his true plans are for America.  There are lots of people that will vote for a war mongering, pro-corporate, pro-wealthy American agenda.  His problem is adding this group to the Evangelicals and NRA diehards, is still not enough to get elected.  SO he is continually trying to lie to American voters.
Professor Larry Martles makes two important points in a recent New York Times article; first, “…80 percent of net income gains since 1980 went to people in the top 1 percent of the income distribution…” and second, “…the real incomes of working-poor families (at the lowest 20th percentile of the income distribution) grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House…”

This country’s long term economic health will only be realized if we have a large and vibrant middle class.  Re-building that middle class will require closing the economic divide between the very wealthy and the rest of us—moving people out of poverty.

Republican administrations have proven they are not up to this task.  McCain’s insistence on keeping in place Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy will only hurt our economy.
The Headline should read "Obama cuts taxes for the working class."
Might want to pass this "McCain tells lies" thing onto Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Bucahnnen and Mike Barnicle. They seem to think he's the next greatest thing to sliced bread.
John McBush is lying, is anyone surprised?

John McBush= More of the same.

We have been LIED to for 8 years and McBush has already started LYING, just a little preview of the LIES that he would continue.

No surprises here.
whats new . I really dont understand how anyone can vote for a guy to run the free world ,that is so dumb that he had to  be passed up out off the navy acadamy because off his dad, ( you know like when a kid spends to long in middle school they go ahead and pass him up ) I mean really ,then the guy graduates next to last . Are you really ready to turn the country over to a guy like this .  ( so scary )
Congratulations Domenico Montanaro! Thank you for putting out specifics and giving us the facts with no spin, no bias, no bs. THIS is the kind of coverage we have been hungering for. Tell your buddies to leave the tabloidism at the curb, 'k?
Hello people, SENILE OLD MCFLIPFLOP A.K.A. "MUSH-HEAD" is an outright liar.  But that is what the Republican party does.  Mush-head and his Republican cronies are (to para-phrase Orwell) "aware of complete truthfullness while telling carefully constructed lies, hold two simultaneous opinions that contradict each other but believe in both of them, repudiate morality while laying claim to it, and forget whatever is necessary to forget then draw it back into memory again when it is needed, and then promptly forget it again."  Mush-head cannot win the election by discussing the issues.  The only way Mush-head can win is by lying about Obama even though he knows the truth.  George Orwell was right, only about 20 years too early.
Chuck and Team,

You guys are the best, keep reporting the truth, keep hammering the truth and the truth shall prevail.

Sen. McCain and his Karl Rove's boys think they can lie their way to the white house. They continue to dish out lies, they continue to talk about Barack, while Barack continues to talk about issues that matter to Americans.

McCain wear $520 shoes, he has six houses, his wife worth more than $100 and said she can only more around AR in private Jet, his adviser that authored his economic policy does not and could feel what other people are feeling, he said our economic challenges are mental and that we whining. yet they are calling somebody who was raised by single mum, worked his way through school, who just finished paying his student loan elitist. What a shame on McCain who has lost any trace of honour.
Local media need to pick up on this story and print this page in their local newspapers. If they won't do it then people backing Obama need to send an editorial comment to their local paper outlining these differences between McCain and Obama.

Then during the debates one of the moderators needs to keep this information on hand and challenge McCain on his misrepresentation of the facts when debating Obama on the economy. If these moderators ask the right questions McCain is going to be embarrassed and proven to be a liar.  

A question to McCain supporters. How can you support someone who is telling the Amercian people that Obama will raise taxes on the poor and middle class when the facts show that Obama will actually give these people a larger tax break then McCain? It does not make sense. Obviously those blogging in here and who are supporting McCain are doing so regardless of the facts or because they have an unfair or unjust bias against Obama.
Why not give ALL the info?  Under McCain's plan, the highest tax bracket would receive MORE THAN THE MEDIAN COST OF A HOME!
Your title is a question and your comments give the answer. Maybe your title should give the answer for Republicans and LIV's (Low informed voters).  
Maybe Barack should take a longer vacation so the media can continue to take a close look at Gaffes, misstatements and memory lapses.
It's time to debunk the myth that Democrats tax & spend.

The DNC and Obama should make an ad using the numbers from the Tax Policy Center and show the budget surplus during Clinton's presidency and show the budget deficit during Reagan's and Bush's (I, II) presidency.

Also, today's budget deficient does not include the cost of the two wars. That's bogus!
"Woop-de-doo.  $300 will buy about 6 weeks of gas in my car.  Gee, thanks. lol  At least the candidates are being only slightly dishonest this time.  It is a tax cut, just not one that helps at all.  Let's face it, there are no tax cuts on the horizon from either candidate because the national debt, social security, and the war are consuming all your tax dollars. Tax cut?  Forget about it. "

- Mark in IN
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mark? Are you paying attention?

The "candidates" aren't being "slightly dishonest", John McCain is LYING.

John McCain said that Barack Obama would RAISE taxes on those making $42,000 or less when that is a LIE.

Not only is it a LIE, but Barack Obama's plan does exactly the OPPOSITE of what John McCain claims by actually CUTTING middle class taxes.

And those DEFICITS you speak of? Those are the DIRECT RESULT of cutting taxes and WAGING two wars, another policy supported by John McCain THE LIAR.

Vote for Obama.....see our great nation slide down the slope. Wake up. The man is NOT a leader. Any person who does not support our men and women in the military should not be running this great nation.
Why should the republicans mind 'giving'.  They have given us a war. They have given us dead soldiers that we can't take pictures of for the newspapers. They have given us a trillion dollar deficit.  They have given China interest upon interest for loans.  They have given us more joblessness.  They have given us a bad reputation in the world. They have given us more homelessness.  The republicans - yea, boy, they just love to 'give'. They keep giving us lie after lie.   Come to think of it, we now meet the definition of a third world country.  

Government controlled media!


From that study:

Comparison of the Two Plans

If enacted, the Obama and McCain tax plans would have radically different effects on the distribution of tax burdens in the United States. 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 McCain tax plan would make the tax system more regressive, even compared with a system in which the 2001–06 tax cuts are made permanent. 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.

Measured against current law in 2009, Senator Obama’s plan raises after-tax incomes by more than 5.5 percent for those in the bottom quintile and also provides more modest increases for those in the next three quintiles (figure 1). The top quintile would experience an average tax increase because of the hikes in the tax rates on capital gains and dividends and the increases in the top two individual income tax rates. The increase in taxes would be dramatic for those at the very top of the income scale, representing 8.7 percent of after-tax income for the top 1 percent of households and 11.5 percent of income for the richest 1 in 1,000.
In contrast, the McCain plan would provide virtually no benefit to households in the bottom quintile, and very modest benefits to those in the next three quintiles. The top quintile would receive a tax cut of more than 3 percent of after-tax income. Within the top quintile, the richest 1 percent of households would receive an average tax cut of 3.4 percent. That figure rises to almost 4.4 percent for the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution.
The difference in the distributional effects of the two plans is just as stark when measured against current law in 2012.

The Obama plan would still provide the largest tax breaks, measured as a percentage of after-tax income, to those in the bottom quintile. Each quintile would, on average, receive a tax cut but those at the very top of the income scale would receive tax increases. On average, the top 1 percent would receive a tax increase equal to about 3 percent of income; that figure would rise to about 5 percent of income for the richest 1 in 1,000 households.
As in 2009, the McCain tax plan provides very little benefit to households at the bottom of the income distribution in 2012. Households in the lowest quintile receive tax cuts averaging about 1 percent of income. Because McCain’s plan extends all of the regressive 2001–06 tax measures (other than complete repeal of the estate tax) and cuts corporate taxes, those in the top 1 percent receive average cuts representing 9.5 percent of income; that figure is 11.6 percent for the top 0.1 percent of households.
______________


Everyone.... PLEASE email the link to this article to everyone you know and have it forwarded on.  Most importantly make sure to copy/paste the above summary as well.  We need to fight the lies the Republicons are spreading.
The Obama campaign also needs to inundate those swing States with Pamphlets / Flyers that point out the facts and the differences between himself and McCain as the one reported on this thread. Volunteers need to stick one of these Flyers in every doorway of every house in these swing States.

Oh how we would have liked to have a debate moderated by Tim Russert. He would have nailed McCain on a lot of these misrepresentations and lies that he is trying to pull over the voter's eyes.
THANKS SO MUCH FR !!!!!
I knew you could do it.  Now if you could just get your colleagues to follow suit.

We all know McCain is a liar.
Look: the people McCain's pandering to DON'T CARE that he's lying.

If you want to live in a dreamland where the status quo is helping, we always win the war (just like we won vietnam, right?), and you can be subtly racist and claim it's something else... why then, what's a few lies?? If you hand blind people with no taste a plate of crap and tell them that it's chocolate, how will they know?

Look for McCain's camp to continue the lies, look for his supporters/bloggers to continue to perptuate them, and look for the MSM to continue to tread lightly around him. It's just the way it's going to happen. I think it's bull, you think it's bull, and it may cost Obama the election due to the gullibility of the average american, but it's just the way things go.

Sad, but very true.

In the meantime, Obama just lets things roll off his back and gets accused of not fighting back. Why is this such a bad thing? And Obama gets HEAVILY vetted for every last thing, when we haven't even seen the "Keating 5", McCain's divorce, etc. etc. show up once? I hate how some people say that McCain's already been vetted, but not this election, not this time around, and the people just coming into this thing won't know.

The media is terribly biased, but it's because they fear the backlash. Think about it.


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