FactCheck: Kerry has $900B in proposals, but not as taxes
BUSH_CHENEY CLAIM: "Kerry's plan will raise taxes by at least $900 billion his first hundred days."
CNN FACT CHECK:Bush says Kerry will raise taxes to pay for "new government spending." The Kerry campaign says the figure is "completely false."
Kerry has not said he would raise taxes to that degree to pay for his proposals. The $900 billion figure is the Bush campaign's estimate of how much taxes would have to be raised in order to pay for Kerry's spending proposals. Kerry's health plan was
estimated to cost between $653 billion and $895 billion. Kerry says he would cut the $500 billion federal deficit in half by 2009. Kerry initially had offered few details about how he would pay for all his proposals, other than repealing the Bush tax
cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year. Now, he has added that he would repeal the Bush administration's capital gains and dividend tax cuts and reinstate the estate tax, which Kerry's campaign said would generate about $860 billion in revenue.
FactCheck: Bush spent $236B surplus, not $5.6T surplus
Kerry claimed Bush "has taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." But the country never actually had a $5.6 trillion surplus. The projected surplus Kerry was referring to was a 10-year figure that was already
made dubious by a weakening economy and a pent-up Congressional urge to spend. The largest annual surplus actually realized was $236 billion in fiscal year 2000, which ended a month before Bush was elected.
Source: Analysis of Third Bush-Kerry debate (FactCheck.org)
Oct 14, 2004
Restore pay-as-you-go for fiscal discipline
Q: You pledged that you would not raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 a year. How can you keep that pledge without running this country deeper into debt?
KERRY: I'll tell you exactly how I can do it: by reinstating what Pres. Bush took
away, which is called "pay as you go." During the 1990s, we had pay-as-you-go rules. If you were going to pass something in the Congress, you had to show where you are going to pay for it and how. Pres. Bush is the only president in history to [rescind
pay-as-you-go]. I'm going to reverse that. We're going to restore the fiscal discipline we had in the 1990s.
BUSH: I'll tell you what PAYGO means, when you're a senator from Massachusetts, PAYGO means: You pay, and he goes ahead and spends.
He's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending, and yet the so-called tax on the rich raises $800 billion by his account. There is a tax gap. And guess who usually ends up filling the tax gap? The middle class.
Shown exactly how to pay for every plan I've laid out
Every plan that I have laid out - my health care plan, my plan for education, my plan for kids to be able to get better college loans - I've shown exactly how I'm going to pay for those. We pass, hopefully, the McCain-Kerry Commission, which identified
some $60 billion that we can get. We shut the loophole, which has American workers actually subsidizing the loss of their own job. They just passed an expansion of that loophole in the last few days, $43 billion of giveaways including favors to the oil
and gas industry and to people importing ceiling fans from China. I'm going to stand up and fight for the American workers and I'm going to do it in a way that's fiscally sound. I show how I pay for the health care, how we pay for education. I have a
manufacturing jobs credit, we pay for it by shutting that loophole overseas. We raise the student loans. I pay for it by changing the relationship with the banks. This president has never once vetoed one bill. First president in 100 years not to do that.
KERRY: I'm going to restore what we did in the 1990s: pay as you go. We're going to do it like you do it. The president broke the pay-as-you-go rule.
BUSH: He's just not credible when he talks about being fiscally conservative. If you look at his
record in the Senate, he voted to break the spending caps over 200 times. And of course he's going to raise your taxes. You see, he's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending. He says he's going to raise the taxes on the rich-that raises $800 billion. Now,
either he's going to break all these wonderful promises he's told you about or he's going to raise taxes. And I suspect, given his record, he's going to raise taxes.
KERRY: In 1985, I was one of the first Democrats to move to balance the budget. I vote
for the balanced budget in '93 and '97. We did it. And I was there.
BUSH: Yes, he's got a record. You can run, but you can't hide. He voted 98 times to raise taxes. It's just not credible to say he's going to keep taxes down and balance budgets.
Bush has driven up the biggest deficits in US history
We paid down the debt of our nation for two years in a row and we created 23 million new jobs at the same time. And it's Bush's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history.
He's added more debt to the debt of the US in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together. Go figure.
Source: Second Bush-Kerry Debate, in St. Louis MO
Oct 8, 2004
Bush's $2.2T figures are put together by a biased group
BUSH: Kerry's proposed $2.2 trillion of new spending. How are you going to pay for it? He said well, he's going to raise the taxes on the rich. That's what he said. The top two brackets. That raises, he says, $800 billion. We say $600 billion.
We've got battling green eyeshades. Somewhere in between those numbers. And so there's a difference - what he's promised and what he can raise. The way to grow this economy is to keep taxes low, is have an energy plan, is to have litigation reform.
KERRY: The figures of $2.2 trillion just aren't accurate. Those are the fuzzy math figures put together by some group that works for the campaign. Number two, John McCain and
I have a proposal jointly for a commission that closes corporate giveaway loopholes. We got $40 billion going to Bermuda. We got all kinds of giveaways. We ought to be shutting those down.
Incentives to create jobs at home and end corporate welfare
We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.
We want new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.
Investment in technology & innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.
Close the tax
loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong-in the good old USA.
We value an America that exports products, not jobs-American workers should
never have to subsidize the loss of their own job. Next, we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field-because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's nobody in the world the American worker
can't compete against. We're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare.
We can do better on economy--lift people out of poverty
We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better. We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is
a country of the future. We're the can do people. Let's not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and the standard of living for the middle class.
Source: Acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention
Jul 29, 2004
Kerry pledges 10 million new jobs & to slow outsourcing
Kerry pledged to create 10 million new jobs in four years. Kerry's proposal includes tax reform and credits to encourage job creation in the United States, an education and job training program, as well as a plan to "restore fiscal discipline and
confidence in the American economy." Kerry also called for sweeping changes in international tax law to give incentives to companies that create jobs in the United States.
Source: CNN.com
Mar 26, 2004
Economy is recovering for corporations to some degree
Q: Do you agree that the economy is recovering?
A: It's a recovery for the people in the corporate boardroom. It's a recovery for corporations, to some degree, by compacting, by increasing productivity. But if you go across America, it's not a recovery
This recovery is a recovery for those people who have stock. It's a recovery for those people who are able to walk away with the highest salaries. But workers have only seen a three-cents-an-hour increase in their wages.
Source: Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum
Jan 11, 2004
Will follow Clinton's plan to halve deficit in four years
Q: Your plan to balance the budget?
KERRY: I'm going to do what Clinton did. I'm going to cut the deficit in half in the first four years. Clinton's plan was to balance the budget in 10 years, not the five Governor Dean says.
The reason we decided not to do it in five was because it required extraordinary cuts in the things we just talked about doing investing in the city of Detroit, investing in our schools, investing in health care, making our economy move.
Source: Democratic Presidential 2004 Primary Debate in Detroit
Oct 27, 2003
Base policy on broad growth and progressive taxation
We cannot go back to the 1909s, and we should not simply restore the Clinton administration's policies. But there are certain bedrock, mainstream principles that can and must power our engines of economic growth:
Economic growth is built on the
talent and hard work of all our people, not just wealthy elites.
Both private and public investment play a role in building the infrastructure for growth.
Government must ensure a fair and honest marketplace for business competition,
labor-management cooperation, and investors with enforceable standards of integrity for financial and accounting systems and corporate executives.
The progressive system of taxes, which distributes the burden of self-government in proportion to the
ability to pay, can and should be maintained without discouraging enterprise or wealth.
The Bush administration has violated, indeed sometimes even waged war on, all of these foundations of American economic policy.
Bush policy kept economy afloat in recession-keep some of it
GEPHARDT [to Kerry]: [Maintaining any part of the Bush tax plan] is the wrong policy, and let me tell you why. This plan has failed. The president's economic plan has failed. And we should not keep half of a failure or a quarter of a failure.
If it's failed, let's change the policy. Let's do something else. We'll go back to the Clinton tax code. I led the fight in 1993 to put those changes in place; it worked. And my plan will give more money to the average family than the Bush tax cuts.
KERRY: Going back to the Clinton tax cuts, doesn't create another job, it puts a burden on current predicament of middle-class Americans. They lose their current revenue. What's kept America's economy moving in the last two and a half years
has been consumer spending. If all of a sudden, when we're trying to recover, we sucked a whole lot of money out of those consumers, we are not going to be able to keep the economy moving. It's the wrong policy.
A: The first thing we have to do is to roll back the Bush tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. Fiscally responsible tax cuts for working families can grow the economy,
but there is no excuse for special tax cuts for the rich. Then we can create jobs and invest in our people. With the right economic plan, we can turn our economy around, invest in people and reduce deficits all at the same time.
Source: MoveOn.org interview
Jun 17, 2003
An economic record I'm proud to run on
We have the lowest unemployment rate in years. Record low interest rates. We have a combined misery index the lowest it's been in 27 years.
More business owned by women at any time in the American history. More homeownership at any time in American history. That's the record I'm proud to run on.
Source: KERRY/WELD: HOME STRETCH, PBS.org
Oct 25, 1996
Voted NO on paying down federal debt by rating programs' effectiveness.
Amendment intends to pay down the Federal debt and eliminate government waste by reducing spending on programs rated ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).
Proponents recommend voting YES because:
My amendment says we are going to take about $18 billion as a strong signal from the Congress that we want to support effective programs and we want the taxpayer dollars spent in a responsible way. My amendment doesn't take all of the $88 billion for the programs found by PART, realizing there may be points in time when another program is not meeting its goals and needs more money. So that flexibility is allowed in this particular amendment. It doesn't target any specific program.
Almost worse than being rated ineffective, we have programs out there that have made absolutely no effort at all to measure their results. I believe these are the worst offenders. In the following years, I hope Congress will look at those programs to create accountability.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
The effect of this amendment will simply be to cut domestic discretionary spending $18 billion. Understand the programs that have been identified in the PART program are results not proven. Here are programs affected: Border Patrol, Coast Guard search and rescue, high-intensity drug trafficking areas, LIHEAP, rural education, child abuse prevention, and treatment. If there is a problem in those programs, they ought to be fixed. We ought not to be cutting Border Patrol, Coast Guard search and rescue, high-intensity drug trafficking areas, LIHEAP, rural education, and the rest. I urge a "no" vote.
Voted NO on $40B in reduced federal overall spending.
Vote to pass a bill that reduces federal spending by $40 billion over five years by decreasing the amount of funds spent on Medicaid, Medicare, agriculture, employee pensions, conservation, and student loans. The bill also provides a down-payment toward hurricane recovery and reconstruction costs.
Reference: Work, Marriage, and Family Promotion Reconciliation Act;
Bill S. 1932
; vote number 2005-363
on Dec 21, 2005
Voted NO on prioritizing national debt reduction below tax cuts.
Vote to table [kill] an amendment that would increase the amount of the budget that would be used to reduce the national debt by $75 billion over 5 year. The debt reduction would be offset by reducing the tax cut in the budget framework from $150 billion
Approval of the 1998 GOP Budget which would cut spending and taxes.
Status: CR Agreed to Y)78; N)22
Reference: H. Con. Res. 84 as amended;
Bill H. Con. Res. 84
; vote number 1997-92
on May 23, 1997
Voted NO on Balanced-budget constitutional amendment.
Approval of the balanced-budget constitutional amendment.
Status: Joint Resolution Defeated Y)66; N)34
Reference: S. J. Res. 1;
Bill S. J. Res. 1
; vote number 1997-24
on Mar 4, 1997
Require full disclosure about subprime mortgages.
Kerry co-sponsored requiring full disclosure about subprime mortgages
Sen. DODD: Today we are facing a crisis in the mortgage markets on a scale that has not been seen since the Great Depression: over 2 million homeowners face foreclosure at a loss of over $160 billion in hard-earned home equity; over one out of every 5 subprime loans is currently delinquent. These high default rates have frozen the subprime and jumbo mortgage markets and infected the capital markets to the point where central banks around the world have had to inject liquidity into the system to avoid the crisis from spreading to other segments of the market.
One of the fundamental causes of this serious crisis is abusive and predatory subprime mortgage lending. The Homeownership Preservation and Protection Act of 2007 is designed to protect American homeowners from these practices, and prevent this disaster from happening again. The legislation will:
realign the interests of the mortgage industry with borrowers to insure the availability of mortgage capital on fair terms
both for the creation and sustainability of homeownership;
establish new lending standards to ensure that loans are affordable and fair, and
provide for adequate remedies to make sure the standards are met; and create a transparent set of rules for the mortgage industry so that capital can safely return to the market without bad lending practices driving out the good.
It is important to keep in mind that only about 10% of subprime mortgages have been made to first time home buyers. This market has not been primarily about creating a new set of homeowners; a majority of subprime loans have been refinances. While maintaining access to subprime credit on fair terms is important, too much of the subprime market has actually put the homes and home equity of American families at risk.
In the coming months, the housing crisis is going to get worse. We will need to continue to press lenders and servicers to provide real relief for homeowners threatened with foreclosure.
Source: Homeownership Preservation and Protection Act (S.2452 ) 2007-S2452 on Dec 12, 2007
Reform mortgage rules to prevent foreclosure & bankruptcy.
Kerry co-sponsored reforming mortgage rules to prevent foreclosure & bankruptcy
Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 - refinance mortgages originally financed through a qualified subprime loan.
Makes FY2008 appropriations for emergency needs of states and local governments to redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes; and the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation for foreclosure mitigation activities.
Helping Families Save Their Homes in Bankruptcy Act of 2008 - Authorizes a bankruptcy plan for individuals with regular income to provide for payment of such claim for a period of up to 30 years. Creates a principal residence homestead exemption for debtors over 55 years of age.
Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act of 2008 - Amends the Truth in Lending Act to set forth additional disclosure requirements governing any extensions of credit (not only mortgages) secured by the dwelling of a consumer.
Source: Foreclosure Prevention Act (S.2636) 2008-S2636 on Feb 13, 2008
