No matter how they try to distort the truth, one thing’s for sure – recorded facts will always remain the same (unless your name is Jon Kyl of Arizona, who unsuccessfully tried to change the record after lying about Planned Parenthood on the floor of the Senate). No, this post is not about Jon Kyl, but rather his Republican congressional lying buddy – Senator Jeff Sessions.
Yesterday on CBS’s Face The Nation, Sessions apparently forgot the power of records and stated that the Bush Tax cuts led to increased revenue for each year the taxes were cut. The way that lie unknowingly fell from Mr. Sessions’ mouth, was in response to a correct statement made by a Democrat on the panel, Mr. Bill Nelson. Nelson stated the facts, saying;
“Jeffrey, you have to acknowledge that part of our deficit problem was the huge Bush tax cuts in the early part of the decade. What was handed off to the new administration of over a trillion dollars of annual deficit, that accounted for almost half of it. If you’re going to be real about the numbers, you’re going to have to address these kinds of things.”
Jeffery must have thought he was on a Fox News program, where facts and records don’t matter. He responded to Mr. Nelson’s statement by saying;
“That’s not accurate, Bill. The revenue went up every single year after those tax cuts were put in. The revenue is down now because of the low economy … It’s not because taxes have been cut in recent years. It’s because people are not making money. They’re not paying as much taxes. So increasing taxes on that weakened economy is not the way to increase revenue. “
Oh Jeffery, when will you Republicans learn about the Google machine?
A quick search revealed the facts – according to the Bureau of Economic Data, and the White House Office of Management Data, it seems that what Mr. Sessions said, (brace yourself) was a lie. Here are the facts:
- In 2000, Before Bush took office, Tax Revenue came in at $2.0 Trillion
- In 2001, Tax revenue totaled – $1.9 Trillion
- In 2002, the first year of the Bush Tax Cuts went into effect, Tax revenue fell to $1.8 Trillion
- In 2003, tax revenue fell to $1.7 Trillion – This, after two more tax cuts went into effect over the next two years, revenue saw a 10% decline.
Analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice claims that the Bush era tax cuts resulted in $1,918.9 trillion in lower revenue from FY2001 through FY2009, and that the total cost if implementing the cuts (including interest payments on debt) was $2,141 trillion.
