This
the entire premise of the thread is a COMPLETE LIE.)
The Facts
We traced the talking point to
a document put out by the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, essentially the communications arm of Senate Democrats. That document laid out a series of statistics, tailored for each individual state, that purported to show how damaging the evolving Republican tax plan would be for middle-class Americans.
That document had this line on each state page: “The average tax increase on families nationwide earning up to $86,100 would be $794, a significant burden for middle-class families.”
This factoid in turn was sourced to
a report by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee. So we tracked that down.
That report had this line: “If enacted, the Republican tax reform proposal would saddle 8 million households that earn up to $86,100 with an average tax increase of $794 — a substantial expense for working families.”
Note the difference. The original report referred to 8 million households receiving a $794 tax increase. Somehow, when it got communicated down the line, that nuance was lost and it was translated into a talking point referring to
all working-class families.
Latoya Veal, spokeswoman for the JEC Democrats, explained how the number was calculated. The staff took
an estimate by the Tax Policy Center, based on the GOP’s “Unified Framework” released in September. The staff then focused on the households (technically “tax units” in the TPC document) making under $86,100 — the bottom three quintiles of taxpayers — that would face a tax increase. Weighting the tax increase by the number of people in each quintile, the staff came up with an average tax hike of $794 for the people receiving a tax increase.
But notice the funny thing about this calculation: Only a small percentage (6.5 percent) of the nearly 122 million households in the bottom three quintiles will actually face a tax increase.
Meanwhile, more than 97 million (80 percent) will receive a tax cut. Doing the math the same way the JEC staff did, we come up with an average tax cut of about $450 for those 97 million households.
Indeed, at the far end of the chart, you will see that every quintile on average receives a tax cut — not a tax increase.
IOW the LYING LEFT is at it again....