Policy proposals that involve numbers seem to be the ones most prone to outrageous assertions made by candidates in ads, speeches and debates. One only needs to observe the second Presidential debate two nights ago between Barack Obama and John McCain, and the “truth-stretching” statements they made about each other’s tax proposals.

This is why the Tax Foundation has taken up the challenge of clearing the air during this campaign season. Let’s start with the Democrat from Illinois:

Obama claims that since George W. Bush took office, “we have [had a] half-a-trillion-dollar deficit annually.” Obama’s deficit figure is way off; the highest deficit over the last eight years was $438 billion, and the average over the last 4 years was $292 billion.

Obama was also misleading when talking about health care. When he responded to McCain’s health tax credit proposal – $5,000 for family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage – Obama was correct when he said that McCain wants to “tax your health care benefits” because McCain is proposing to replace the current income tax exclusion for employer-based insurance with his credit. But Obama goes on to describe that policy as a situation where “one hand giveth and the other taketh away.” The reality is that McCain’s health credit proposal, is giving more than it takes away for most taxpayers because the new health credit, over the next ten years, exceeds the value of the existing income tax exclusion.

But Obama isn’t the only one stretching the truth. Let’s analyze some gaffes from the Republican from Arizona:

McCain states that he wants “to double the personal exemption for dependents from $3,500 to $7,000.” The truth is that Sen. McCain’s plan would take 8 years to double the exemption from $3,500 to $7,000. Since even under current law, the exemption would increase to roughly $4,750 due to annual inflation adjustments, it would be more accurate for Sen. McCain to say that he is increasing it by 50 percent. That’s still a big increase, but it’s not double.

McCain was further misleading when saying that Washington has “to stop this spending spree” because “we’ve laid a $10 trillion debt on these young Americans.” If Sen. McCain is concerned with the national debt, his tax proposals do not show it. His plan would grow the national debt rapidly, by over $4 trillion in a decade, according to some estimates. McCain can’t cut that much spending by just going after earmarks.

It’s unfortunate that we have to fact-check in the first place. Visit my full fact-check piece here, and listen to our two podcasts on the “Facts and Falsehoods of the Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans; we have one on Obama and one on McCain. An interesting question to ponder is whether or not Presidential campaigns could live up to the same standards that businesses are held to when advertising their products and services to consumers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Politics .