A Few More Sarah Palin Lies About The Expiring Tax Cuts

GOP leaders had a rough Sunday on the usually-friendly ground of Fox News Sunday.

Famous half-term Governor Sarah Palin spent much of her 15 minutes accusing the White House of hatching an "idiotic" plot to raise taxes by $3.8 trillion over the next decade. As Think Progress pointed out, Palin got the number completely wrong despite writing it down on her hand. At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen noted the larger deception at play in Palin's interview:

For one thing, Democrats, at a minimum, want to keep the current tax rates in place for those making less than $250,000 a year. Palin's assumption is based on a full repeal of all the cuts, which isn't the plan. Palin either (a) isn't paying enough attention to the debate, (b) doesn't know how to use a calculator; or (c) is lying and hoping the public is too confused to know the difference.

Choice (a) seems unlikely. Palin must be paying some attention to the debate, because she thought to bring a printed page of talking points about the expiring tax cuts to read to Fox viewers. And given the content of those talking points, choice (c) seems pretty likely. Consider the overlooked lies Palin told:

"The reinstatement of the marriage penalty tax."

Both of President Obama's budgets have included a proposal to maintain the 2001 modifications to the Standard Deduction that ended the "marriage penalty." As the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) put it in their summary of White House proposals for the expiring cuts: "The proposal permanently increases the basic standard deduction for a married couple filing a joint return to twice the basic standard deduction for an unmarried individual filing a single return."

"Cutting the child tax credit in half."

The Bush tax cuts bumped the Child Tax Credit to $1,000 per child, but cut that back to $500 after 2010. The JCT again: "For years after 2010, this proposal doubles the child tax credit (from $500 to $1,000) to provide additional tax relief to families to help offset the costs of raising a child."

"Capital gains taxes increasing 15% to 20%."

Maybe Palin meant the capital gains rate will move from the current 15% to the proposed 20%. But the way she said it — the way it was written on her prepared notes — made it sound like the capital gains rate would jump ­by 15-20%.

Palin's mix of misleading ambiguity and scary falsehoods sure seems like "lying and hoping the public is too confused to know the difference."

Bottom line: Obama plans to keep the "good" parts of the Bush tax cuts, while saving nearly a trillion dollars by allowing the rates for the richest 3% of Americans to lapse.

The only way Palin's nightmare scenario could come to pass is if the Republicans decide to place their loyalty to the wealthy over their common sense (and the recommendations of economic advisers) and block the Democrats' efforts yet again.