Miscounting Obama's Tax Votes

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, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals.
• Eleven votes the GOP is counting would have increased taxes on those making more than $1 million a year – in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans' health care.
• The GOP sometimes counted two, three and even four votes on the same measure. We found their tally included a total of 17 votes on seven measures, effectively padding their total by 10.
• The majority of the 94 votes – 53 of them, including some mentioned above – were on budget measures, not tax bills, and would not have resulted in any tax change. Four other votes were non-binding motions related to conference report negotiations.

It's true that most of the votes the GOP counts would either have increased taxes for some, or set budget targets calling for such increases. But by repeating their inflated 94-vote figure, McCain and the GOP falsely imply that Obama has pushed indiscriminately to raise taxes for nearly everybody. A closer look reveals that he's voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers. That's consistent with what he's said he'd do as president, which is to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year.

Analysis
In a June 9 press release, Tucker Bounds, spokesman for Sen. John McCain's campaign said that "during just three years in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has already voted 94 times for higher taxes." The same day, the RNC, which researched Obama's votes and is the original source of the claim, issued its own release, saying "Obama Voted At Least 94 Times For Higher Taxes" and that he had voted "For A Tax Increase Approximately Once Every Five Days Congress Has Been In Session." A few days later, McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin and other campaign staffers repeated the charge, which was quoted in various news stories. We suspect we'll be hearing this figure a lot more as the campaign wears on.

If this type of claim sounds familiar, it's because George W. Bush's campaign used a similar refrain against John Kerry in 2004, charging that Kerry voted for "higher taxes" a whopping 350 times. We found that claim to be incorrect as well. This time around, Republicans are using some of the same tricky accounting to beef up the number of votes.

Higher Than My Taxes Are Now?
By our count, about a quarter of these votes for "higher taxes" – 23 to be exact – are votes Obama cast against changing tax rates from what they were at the time. Taxes would not have gone up. They would have been "higher" only compared to the cuts being proposed.

The RNC admits as much in its documentation on the 94 votes, faulting Obama for voting nine times against lowering the capital gains tax rate, seven times against implementing tax incentives for small businesses, six times against lowering the estate tax and three times against repealing a more than decade-old increase in taxes on Social Security benefits, among other votes. The RNC counts these as votes "for higher taxes" even though Obama voted to keep taxes right where they were.

Win Some, Lose Some
Seven votes on the RNC's list were votes Obama cast for measures that called for lowering certain taxes broadly and would have paid for the cuts by raising taxes on high-income individuals or corporations. The RNC didn't give Obama credit for voting for the lower taxes, of course.

Two votes were in favor of a "windfall profit tax" on oil companies and handing out the revenue in the form of rebate checks or nonrefundable tax credits to the public. Another favored giving tax benefits to areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and extending several other tax relief provisions, all of it financed by closing corporate and individual "loopholes" and extending Superfund taxes on corporations, used to pay for toxic waste cleanups. Obama also voted for a refundable tax credit for farmers, paid for by closing a loophole that gives a foreign income tax credit to oil companies. Yet another of these pieces of legislation, an amendment to the 2007 energy bill, would have extended and expanded all kinds of renewable energy tax credits and covered the cost by increasing taxes on oil companies. All of the measures were rejected.

Raising Taxes? Or Wages?
Along the same lines, two of the items the RNC calls votes "against tax incentives for small businesses" were actually votes against Republican counter-measures to Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage. While Democrats were voting for a measure to raise the minimum wage to $7.25, for example, Republicans offered a substitute that would have held the increase to $6.25 and thrown in a bundle of tax breaks for small businesses as well. Because Obama favored the higher wage package over the Republican alternative, the GOP and McCain count his vote against the GOP alternative as one for "higher taxes."