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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Tax Tally Trickery

Summary
The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee both claim that Obama has voted 94 times “for higher taxes.” We find that their count is padded. After looking at every one of the 94 votes that the RNC includes in its tally, we find:

Twenty-three were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
Seven of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many,

Distortions in the Desert

Democratic challenger Jim Pederson inaccurately portrays incumbent Sen. Jon Kyl’s voting record on energy policy. He says Kyl “voted oil corporations billions in special tax breaks” when in fact Kyl was one of the few Republicans to oppose tax breaks in the recent energy bill.