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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1316866&l=10526
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IN THIS MIS-LEAD:
1. NEW IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Bush's Bold Call to Action on AIDS Epidemic Seems
Forgotten
2. TODAY'S MISLEAD: Bush Claims of Small Business Tax Cuts Exaggerated
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1. NEW IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Bush's Bold Call to Action on AIDS Epidemic Seems
Forgotten
President Bush made a stirring commitment to emergency action on the global
AIDS epidemic in his State of the Union Address ten months ago. While the
administration continues to prominently feature its plans and program on its
website, the President seems to have forgotten his bold call to action,
underfunding his own initiative, conducting his policy in secrecy and
writing trade deals on the side that will undermine poorer countries access
to the medicines that will save them. Check out the new In the Spotlight
from the Global AIDS Alliance.
Read the In The Spotlight here -->
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1316866&l=10527
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2. TODAY'S MISLEAD: Bush Claims of Small Business Tax Cuts Exaggerated
On a campaign trip to Michigan yesterday, President Bush echoed one of his
familiar claims, saying "I want to remind people about is that the tax
relief was geared toward small businesses...When you hear us talking about
reducing all taxes on individuals, you really hear also the message that
we're reducing taxes on small businesses." This statement is the most recent
in a long line of similar assertions - an unscientific Lexis-Nexis search
shows, that in just the three years since Bush became President, he and Vice
President Cheney have given at least 150 separate speeches claiming that
their tax proposals are specifically geared to helping small business.
But simple statistics show just how misleading these statements are. In
talking about his 2001 tax cut, the President specifically promised that
there would be "more than 17.4 million small business owners and
entrepreneurs who stand to benefit from dropping the top rate from 39.6% to
33%" - the major piece of his proposal.
But according to nonpartisan analyses of IRS and Treasury Department data,
just 3.7% of small business owners are subject to these top tax rates -
meaning the rest receive almost nothing from the major piece of his plan. In
other words, for every small business owner that benefits, there are 15
small business owners that do not. All told, small business owners "would be
far more likely to receive no tax reduction whatsoever from the
Administration's tax package than to benefit" in any way.
Similarly, in pushing for his second tax cut in 2003, the President said
that "small businesses stand to gain a great deal" from his most recent tax
cut proposals, because he said it would "give 23 million small business
owners an average tax cut of $2,042."
In fact, "nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business
income would receive less than this amount," according to the nonpartisan
Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Additionally, "52%
of people with small business returns would get $500 or less." The President
produced the $2,042 average figure by deceptively averaging the large tax
cuts that would go to a small number of wealthy individuals who have some
small business income with the miniscule (if any) tax cuts that would go to
millions of more typical small business people.
Read the Mis-Lead -->
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1316866&l=10528
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