GORE'S ‘1 PERCENT' DOOZY
If you believe Al Gore (though it's hard to think that anyone still does), George Bush would shower the surplus on America's "wealthiest 1 percent" and freeze out everyone else.
"I don't think we should give nearly half of [the surplus] to the wealthiest 1 percent, because the other 99 percent have had an awful lot to do with building this surplus and our prosperity," Gore said, referring to Bush's tax cuts.
It's classic class warfare: Get 99 percent of voters to think you champion their cause and the other guy backs the remaining "unworthy" 1 percent.
But that line might be one of Gore's biggest whoppers yet.
The truth - which so often has eluded the vice president - is that Bush wants a tax cut for 100 percent of the people.
Not 1 percent - 100 percent.
Bush wants everyone to share in the cuts. Ironically, it is Gore who'd limit relief - to the select few, of his choosing.
Think about it: Bush's cuts are vastly broader than Gore's - $1.3 billion compared to the veep's $500 million. Even if you wipe out all of the cuts Bush plans for the top percentile, what's left - $746 million - is still more than all of Gore's cuts combined.
More, in fact, by almost half.
In other words - notwithstanding Gore's mathematical fib - the poor and middle class would get back more from Bush than from Gore.
To be sure, the top-earning 1 percent get a big chunk of the cuts under Bush - about 21 percent of income-tax cuts, for example. But these same Americans pay some 29 percent of the income-tax bill.
Don't they deserve to get their money back like everyone else?
Not according to Al Gore.
To him, high-income families are not worthy of equal treatment.
The fact that 96 percent of them, according to the U.S. Trust's latest yearly survey, originated from poor, lower- and middle-class homes is irrelevant.
The fact that they typically have worked their way through college, spent an average of 56 hours a week on the job and toiled in their careers for 29 years makes no difference.
Nor does Al care that this group donates more than its share to charity and creates jobs through its businesses.
No, for Al, these people are simply villains. Their crime: they earn too much.
So here's a tip if Gore is elected: Beware of what you make. Al will want it.
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