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Date:         Fri, 21 Aug 1992 13:50:36 -0400
From:         KILBURN@WVSVAX.WVNET.EDU
Subject:      128 tax hikes

Having received at least one request for a summary, here goes.  Delete at
will :)

This summary is from The New Republic, 31 August, pp. 8 and 49.  Volume
number covered up with address stickers -- sorry.  It's Kinsley's column,
btw.

The Bush-Quayle campaign has issued a list of "128 tax increases" levied by
Bill Clinton in his 11 years as Governor of Arkansas.  Kinsley goes through
the list to illustrate how the Bush-Quayle folks arrived at the figure of
128.  Here are some of the methods:

1)  Phony and double-counting:  Items no. 31, 86, and 91 are second lines
in cases where the description of the alleged hike takes more than one
line; no. 78 is a verbatim repeat of no. 74.

2)  Interesting inferences:  #92 is a $1 per-conviction court cost fee
levied on convicted criminals; #46 is a 1987 law lengthening the season for
dog racing.  Apparently this counts as a tax hike because a longer season
means more gambling tax revenues.

3)  Taxes that never went through or that replace existing taxes of equal
size (nos. 71 and 117).

4)  Counting separately:  A fuel tax hike counts as two hikes, because it
covers both gasoline and diesel; a tax increase on alcohol products counts
as *five* taxes because categories (like wine coolers) are counted
separately.

Kinsley then offers some figures offered by an Arkansas law professor
working for the Clinton campaign.  First, this guy counts between 55 and 59
increases, depending on how you count (figures include 10 items that the
Republicans overlooked).  At the same time, he's produced a list of 48 tax
*cuts* -- including a capital gains cut, tax incentives for businesses
hiring in enterprise zones, and a general cut that reduced or eliminated
income taxes on 374,000 of the state's lowest-income citizens.  Given that
7 of the tax hikes on the list have either expired or been repealed, the
number of cuts just about balances the number of hikes.

Kinsley further points out that the raw number of tax hikes is actually
pretty meaningless.  Arkansas ranks 47th in the country for taxes as a
share of personal income (that's not the same as per capita).  And another
article in the same issue states that in Arkansas, the tax burden relative
to the U.S. average has dropped under Clinton.

Finally, Kinsley applies the Bush-Quayle accounting methods to Bush's
record, and comes up with a *minimum* of 133 tax hikes in 4 years.  And
that's not counting increased fees for government services or increased
criminal fines (both of which count against Clinton).

Oh, yeah -- here's one I overlooked.  Apparently the same "factsheet" that
details these tax hikes also states that "taxes are $397.1 million higher
on an annual basis than when Clinton took office".  Kinsley points out that
that figure takes into account inflation and growth in addition to tax
increases.  And he says that "by the same moronic calculus, federal taxes
are $476.4 *billion* higher than when Ronald Reagan and George Bush took
office -- almost double."

Of course, you can always adhere to the motto on one of the signs I saw
last night: "I don't believe the liberal media."

Cheers
Kerry
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