Debunking Bush Bullshit is Easy

[The Whiskey Priest]

The only thing it is a full time job. Bush does not let a day go by that he doesn’t lie. So you are faced with trying to fight back a tidal wave of Bush bullshit every day.

Let’s look at today: Albuquerque, New Mexico

The text of Bush’s bromides are not up as of yet, so no link, and I am going to paraphrase the points of his speech that I want to address tonight.

Once again, as usual, Bush pushed tax cuts out as the panacea for all problems. I can tell him one it doesn’t work, my chapped ass, which just gets worse every time he starts that crap. I digress, pardon me.

Part of his standard speech is his declaration for the “small business.” From the way he says that phrase you just have to envision some mom and pop operation down the street and on the corner. Well it turns out the definition that he had to use to get there was something different.

Debunk Points: As you will see in the following articles:

The defined a small business as anyone who had any income from a small business. Now it seems that includes millionaire lawyers, doctors, accountants and a whole bunch of folks that make over a cool million a year. When you do that you have a large average tax cut for small business.

The truth is that most small business, the majority of which have a taxable income under $50,000 only will see negligible reduction in their taxes.

In other words once more the rich get richer and the rest of us get the shaft.

Last week, the Republican National Committee cited that statistic in charging that Kerry "doesn't realize tax increases would hurt small businesses and farmers." Treasury officials asserted yesterday that about 75 percent of top-bracket tax returns are from "small-business owners." One official said the IRS was limiting its definition of small businesses to sole proprietorships, leaving out huge numbers of S corporations and partnerships.

But under Treasury's definition, both Bush and Vice President Cheney are members of the entrepreneurial class. In his 2002 tax return, the president reported $1,549 from rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations and trusts, including income from GWB Rangers Corp., a remnant of his days as co-owner of the Texas Rangers. Of the Cheney household's $1.2 million income, $238,682 was from business ventures within the White House's definition of small business.

Economists say the broad Republican definition of "small-business man" includes not only doctors, lawyers and management consultants but also chief executives who earn $3,000 renting out their chalets in Aspen or report $10,000 in speaking fees. An aide on the Joint Economic Committee conceded that the definition includes the army of accountants and consultants at such giant partnerships as KPMG LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, not the firms that "small business" brings to mind.

The aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said committee economists are debating whether to update the statistics to trim out such behemoths. A Treasury official, who formerly worked for one of the accounting giants, defended their inclusion, saying the partners of the major accounting firms are entrepreneurs.

If the definition is revised to stipulate that more than half a small-business person's income has to be from small-business activities, then only one-quarter of filers in the top income tax brackets would be considered entrepreneurs, said William G. Gale, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/small_business_tax_cuts_bush.html

Internal Revenue Service statistics cited by a Democratic senator this month show that the vast majority of small businesses do not earn nearly enough money to fall into the highest income tax bracket. According to IRS data from the 2001 tax year, 3.8 percent of the 18.2 million business tax returns filed that year reported taxable income of $200,000 or more. The top tax bracket last year kicked in at $311,950 of taxable income.


In contrast, 62 percent of business filers reported incomes of less than $50,000, putting them at most in the 15 percent tax bracket, the second lowest. Nearly 88 percent of business filers reported income of less than $100,000, keeping them comfortably below the top two tax brackets of 33 percent and 35 percent, which Kerry and Edwards propose to raise.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A488-2004Feb23?language=printer


The second Debunk Point: Deals with his bullshit statement about how tough he got with corporate corruption. True the Sarbanes-Oxley bill talks tough. The only thing is that Bush has cut the budget (estimated 35%) for the SEC, which means there are less enforcement going to happen. Surprise for you that got back into the market. The odds are you are going to get screwed again.

[orwell]

1. Liars Club

The only thing it is a full time job. Bush does not let a day go by that he doesn’t lie. So you are faced with trying to fight back a tidal wave of Bush bullshit every day.

So true, so true. This group of liars and crooks is Olympian in the level of crap they generate.

Today we found out that Queen Condi never lies...she "mis-speaks".

I guess the moral is if you are going to lie...lie early and lie often.

O