Over the weekend, a congressional tax committee analyzed a portion of the tax Inflation Reduction Act Senator Joe Manchin struck with Senator Chuck Schumer and President Biden. Republicans inaccurately claimed the report shows the plan would increase taxes on the middle class. The plan in fact raises taxes only on corporations with an income over $1 billion. It does not raise taxes on individual taxpayers at all.
This false claim immediately began to spread through conservative media. The study, by the Joint Committee on Taxation, “finds that average tax rates will increase for nearly every income category in 2023 under the bill,” asserts The Wall Street Journal editorial page. “This gives the lie to Democratic claims that no one earning under $400,000 will pay more taxes under the bill, a promise Mr. Biden also made in his campaign. The reality is that the Schumer-Manchin bill is a tax increase on nearly every American.”
Even some neutral media have given this charge respectful treatment. “Biden vowed never to raise taxes on any Americans making less than $400,000 annually,” reports the Capitol Hill newsletter Punchbowl. “Yet according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Schumer-Manchin bill does just that.”
The JCT report simply does not find this at all. The false assertion that Manchin’s deal raises taxes on the middle class combines a series of fallacies.
First, the study, performed at the behest of Senate Republicans, analyzes only a portion of the bill. It...
CONCORD, N.H.- The head of the Division of Children, Youth and Families has addressed claims of abuse against the Sununu Youth Services Center. Appearing Monday before a Senate subcommittee Direct...