Wednesday, October 8, 2008

misleading stuff

McCain: Sen. Obama has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. That's his record.

He's getting warmer — the first time we dinged him for this one, he said Obama voted 94 times to increase taxes, which is way off. He's now saying it's 94 votes either for increased taxes or against tax cuts. But that's still misleading. Seven of the votes were for lowering taxes for most people while increasing them on a few, and 11 votes were for increasing taxes only on those making more than $1 million a year (not "your taxes" except for a very few.)

Obama had his own misleading claim about vote counts:

Obama: And during that time, he voted 23 times against alternative fuels, 23 times.

We found that only 11 of those votes would have reduced or eliminated subsidies or tax incentives for alternative energy. The rest were votes McCain cast against the mandatory use of alternative energy, or votes in favor of allowing exemptions from such mandates.

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