Tax debate spin control
Brad DeLong takes out the scalpel and fillets Sen. Chuck Grassley’s letter to the editor of the New York Times defending the fairness of the Bush tax cuts (the first sentences below are Grassley; italics is DeLong reading the mind of the letter-writer):
| Some observers claim that 40 percent of last year’s tax cuts went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official, unbiased source, says the top 1 percent will receive 27 percent of the income tax cuts [see how I snuck “income tax” into this sentence? All but the most alert one percent of readers will believe that I am claiming that the 40 percent number is flat-out wrong. *Snort*!] |
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