Williams Calls Hume and Kristol ‘Out Of Touch’ For Saying McCain’s Tax Plan Will Help Working Americans

Earlier this week, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center released a paper showing that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) tax plan “offers three times the break for middle class families” than the proposals of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), which “would steer the bulk of the benefits to the wealthiest families.” On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol called the report “good for McCain” because it labels Obama as “a tax raiser” and he doesn’t think voters will be swayed when it’s pointed out that “it’s only a tax on the wealthy.”

But NPR’s Juan Williams strongly disagreed with Kristol, arguing that only the wealthy would view the end of the Bush tax cuts as “raising taxes.” “It’s almost like you guys are out of touch with what ordinary Americans are going through in this country,” charged Williams.

Fox’s Brit Hume responded to Williams with his usual condescending indignation, calling it “baloney” to claim that McCain wants “more tax cuts for big corporations” and “the rich to get richer off the tax code.” Watch it:

Hume’s reactive cry of “baloney” just proves Williams’s point that he is “out of touch.” As the Tax Policy Center found, Obama’s plan provides the heaviest benefits to the poorest Americans while McCain’s plan gives its most significant income increases to the wealthy.

Regarding tax cuts for corporations, $175 billion would go directly to corporations each year under McCain’s tax plan. McCain’s plan would also give $3.8 billion in tax cuts to the five largest American oil companies and $2.8 billion to the nation’s largest energy and utility companies.

Transcript:

KRISTOL: Even the Tax Policy Center, which the McCain people think is sort of a liberal nonpartisan group, acknowledges the following. On net, Obama is a tax raiser. Obama’s plans would hike taxes in sum. And McCain’s would cut taxes, cut the overall tax burden. And I think that’s good for McCain.

This week actually was a — beneath the radar screen of all the other political news, an important thing emerged this week. Obama wants to raise taxes, and he wants to raise them pretty considerably, actually — a 12 percent payroll tax for everything above $250,000, the increased taxes on dividends and interest for anyone who has investments in the stock market.

You know, he can say it’s only a tax on the wealthy, but I think a lot of voters think we’ve been down that road with the Democrats before, and if there’s a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, will they keep that to $250,000, or will they creep down, trying to get more revenues?

I think the tax issue is now setting up well for McCain. He’s got to tie the tax cuts to the pro-growth agenda, but I think it’s a good contrast for McCain.

[...]

WILLIAMS: One last point on this economic thing. I think if you say to most Americans that the tax cut is going — is simply a matter of not continuing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2010, they don’t view that as raising taxes.

That’s the wealthy who might say that, but it’s not on average people who are feeling higher gas taxes. It’s not on average people who have to pay more for food.

It’s almost like you guys are out of touch with what ordinary Americans are going through in this country at this time. People want government to respond to need and not simply to talk about more tax breaks for the rich and for big corporations.

HUME: That’s what McCain’s doing, for sure. He’s saying, I want more tax cuts for big corporations, and I want the rich to get richer off the tax code. Oh, what baloney. That’s not what it’s about at all.

WILLIAMS: Well, where’s the pro-growth? If we have 5 percent –the other day we had the biggest jump in unemployment in this country in 20 years.

HUME: Juan, right. You know what that came from? People coming out of school for the summer, and they’re going into the job market.

WILLIAMS: Oh, come on.

HUME: We’re at 5.5 percent unemployment.

WILLIAMS: Right.

HUME: By historical standards, that is remarkably low. The growth policies and particularly the tax cuts that were passed in this administration have, I think, unquestionably helped this economy through some severe blows — 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and so forth — to the point now where despite a predicted recession the economy is still managing to eke out a little bit of growth.

That’s a strong economic performance, on balance, and not a particularly good argument for allowing the tax cuts that were…

WALLACE: All right.

WILLIAMS: Nobody’s saying that. Justice Hume thinks that ordinary Americans aren’t feeling any pain.

WALLACE: I’m going to gavel you down.

WILLIAMS: Please.