Michael Kinsley is one of those writers whose columns are so good, you actually miss them when he’s on hiatus. He hasn’t had a Slate column for the last six weeks, but fortunately, he’s back and in fine form.
Today Kinsley takes on the myth that John Kerry voted for higher taxes 350 times in his Senate career.
To be sure, the White House really loves this line of attack. Bush uses it, while Cheney has a spasm-like affinity for repeating the charge over and over again.
Kinsley notes the strategy behind the attack, which is craven, and the substance behind it, which is absurd. First up, the strategy.
The purpose of a phony statistic like this one isn’t really to persuade people of its own accuracy. The purpose is to trap your opponent in a discussion he doesn’t want to have (in this case about his past votes about taxes), bog the discussion down in silly details that few people will follow, and leave a general impression that where there is smoke, there must be fire. And certainly, if what matters to you above all else is paying fewer taxes, you’d be a fool to choose Kerry over Bush.
It turns out the substance of the attack, however, is far more ridiculous.
The documentation on the GOP Web site about Kerry’s supposed 350 votes to increase taxes actually lists only 67 votes “for higher taxes.” Most of these are votes against a tax cut, not in favor of a tax increase. The 67 include nine votes listed twice, three listed three times, and two listed four times. The logic seems to be that if a bill contains more than one item (as almost all bills do), it counts as separate votes for or against each item. The Bush list also includes several series of sequentially numbered votes, which are procedural twists on the same bill. And there are votes on the identical issue in different years. The only actual tax increase on Bush’s list (counted twice, but hey … ) is Kerry’s support for Clinton’s 1993 deficit-reduction plan. That’s the one that raised rates in the top bracket and led to a decade of such fabulous prosperity that even its most affluent victims ended up better off.
There are obviously no limits to Bush’s willingness to deceive the public. So, Mr. Kinsley, what happens when we turn the tables on the president?
The best way to see the absurdity of saying that John Kerry voted for higher taxes 350 times is to apply Bush’s madcap logic to Bush himself. Every year, in the president’s budget, there is a table called “Effect of Proposals on Receipts.” It lists the president’s proposed changes in the tax rules and how they will affect government revenues for various periods up to 15 years. Most of Bush’s proposals will cost revenues, obviously. But in the four fiscal years 2002-2005, Bush has proposed 63 actual “revenue enhancers,” as his father used to call them. This doesn’t include, as Bush includes for Kerry, his opposition to any tax cuts (and there have been some, such as Democratic proposals to reduce the payroll tax). Nor does the list seem to include any “supply-side” revenue enhancement by magic or growth. These are actual proposals to take more money out of people’s pockets and give it to the government.
At Bush’s current rate of 16 “tax increases” a year, he’d have 320 under his belt if he could stay in the White House for 20 years. Depending on how you figure — but without wandering beyond Bush himself into the jungles of absurd logic — this is as many as eight times the number that Bush has managed to pin on Kerry. But isn’t it unfair to call, for example, more efficient administration at the IRS a tax increase? And isn’t it simply ridiculous to suggest that George W. Bush is more complacent about higher taxes than John Kerry? Yes, it’s unfair. It’s ridiculous. That’s the point.