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What The New McCain Ad Fails To Mention: He Raises Taxes On Middle Class, Give Huge Tax Breaks To Rich

Our guest blogger is Adam Jentleson, the Communications and Outreach Director for the Hyde Park Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

John McCain has released a new ad attacking Obama on taxes. Watch it:

Here are a few things that McCain’s new ad fails to mention.

If McCain’s health care plan raises taxes enough to avoid blowing a hole in the deficit — as his aides say it does — it would raise taxes by $1,119 on a family making $60,000 within five years. A family making $80,000 a year would see their taxes go up by almost $2,000 in the same period.

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And while McCain proposes large tax cuts, they are even more skewed towards the elite than President Bush’s. Nearly half of his tax cuts would go to big corporations and the top 1 percent of taxpayers. More than 100 million families would not receive any tax cuts at all from McCain’s plan.

While Americans are paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas, McCain’s plan gives $4 billion in tax breaks to the 5 biggest oil companies in the U.S., including a $1.2 billion break for ExxonMobil.

In sum, McCain’s plan is the one that benefits the elite at the expense of the middle class. But don’t take our word for it — here is what the Tax Policy Center at Brookings has to say:

The two candidates’ plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those whose taxes fall would, on average, see their after-tax income rise much less. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise.