McCain Voted to Raise Taxes 477 Times

Let's go through the lies and distortions about Obama's tax plan that McCain is made in a speech this morning in Wisconsin:

McCain Distortion #1: "At the beginning of this campaign he promised to raise taxes on your savings and investments."

Truth: This refers to capital gains and dividend taxes. The statement is false, unless the people he's addressing are exclusively people who make over $250K. Here's what Obama's advisers said in a Wall Street Journal article about his plan:

Sen. Obama believes that one of the principal problems facing the economy today is the lack of discretionary income for middle-class wage earners. That's why his plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000 -- not income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend or payroll taxes.
....
The top capital-gains rate for families making more than $250,000 would return to 20% -- the lowest rate that existed in the 1990s and the rate President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut. A 20% rate is almost a third lower than the rate President Reagan set in 1986.

The tax rate on dividends would also be 20% for families making more than $250,000, rather than returning to the ordinary income rate. This rate would be 39% lower than the rate President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut and would be lower than all but five of the last 92 years we have been taxing dividends.

The "At the beginning of this campaign" part of the phrase is probably intended to refer to the fact that initially Obama only said that his plan would have no tax increases for those making under $250K, and he did not explicitly say (as the WSJ article does) that this included dividend and capital gains taxes as well as tax on wage income.

McCain Distortion #2: "He said he won’t raise taxes for most people but he has voted 94 times in his short Senate career for tax increases and against tax cuts."

Truth: As Factcheck.org has documented, the 94 figure is bogus. And as Jason Furman has pointed out, if you count this way, McCain has voted to raise taxes 477 times.

McCain Deception #3: "He said he would only tax the rich, but he voted this year to raise taxes on those making just $42,000."

Truth: Factcheck.org has explained that this was a vote on a meaningless resolution that has nothing to do with what Obama is actually proposing.

For the full truth on Obama's tax plan, see the links from this post.