As they traded charges and countercharges on the economy, healthcare and other domestic issues, US President George W. Bush mischaracterized who received the tax cuts that have been the centerpiece of his legislative record, and Senator John Kerry exaggerated when he said he was proposing clear ways to raise revenue to pay for his spending proposals.
Kerry was also wrong in saying the president's refusal to allow the government to negotiate drug prices had contributed to the increase in Medicare premiums next year.
TAXES
Bush said most of the tax reduction in his presidency had gone "to low and middle-income Americans." In fact, Internal Revenue Service figures compiled by the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute show that half of all the tax cuts in effect this year go to the wealthiest 10 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes above about US$70,000. One-quarter of the cuts go to the richest 1 percent, those with incomes above about US$290,000.
Bush also said the cuts were needed "to get us out of the recession." But he proposed the cuts in his last presidential campaign, in 2000, before anyone knew that a recession was at hand, and he justified them by saying the surplus should be returned to the taxpayers.
The president said, as he often has elsewhere, that Kerry had voted for tax increases 98 times. That is probably true. But many, if not most, of those were multiple votes on the same bills or on nonbinding resolutions and motions.
Kerry has voted for two large tax increases -- the 1990 budget law backed by the president's father that put the country on the road to a balanced budget, and former President Bill Clinton's 1993 bill, which imposed most of the increases on upper-income taxpayers.
BUDGET
Kerry said Bush had proposed US$3 trillion in new spending, and Bush said Kerry had proposed US$2 trillion. Neither of those claims can be proved, because the details of their proposals are so vague.
Kerry was correct when he said the budget picture had declined from a projected US$5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years when Bush took office to large deficits for the foreseeable future.
But Kerry was not accurate when he said he had shown "exactly how" he intended to pay for all his spending proposals. In fact, he lists as revenue raisers vague promises like closing corporate loopholes and making the government more efficient.
Kerry was right that Bush had opposed pay-as-you-go rules that required tax cuts and spending increases to be offset by other tax increases or spending cuts. Those rules were put in effect in the administration of Bush's father and remained throughout the Clinton years. With Bush's encouragement, they were allowed to expire.
BORDER SECURITY
Kerry said 95 percent of the cargo containers entering American ports were not inspected. Bush said, "We're doing everything we can to protect our borders and ports."
According to the Congressional Research Service, 7 million cargo containers a year enter American ports. The fear is that a nuclear explosive that would be hard to smuggle through Customs could be hidden on a ship and detonated in a port. The 5 percent inspection rate is correct, according to congressional testimony. It takes five agents three hours to inspect a typical containership for contraband when it arrives.
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