FactCheck: Kerry has $900B in proposals, but not as taxes

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

Shown exactly how to pay for every plan I’ve laid out

Restore pay-as-you-go rule that Bush broke

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

Bush’s $2.2T figures are put together by a biased group

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.

Kerry pledges 10 million new jobs & to slow outsourcing

Economy is recovering for corporations to some degree

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.

Will follow Clinton’s plan to halve deficit in four years

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.

Bush policy kept economy afloat in recession-keep some of it

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.

An economic record I’m proud to run on