On social media during the debate, conservatives circulated a tweet from October 14 in which Harwood had corrected himself on the Tax Foundation’s analysis of Rubio’s plan for the bottom 10 percent and top one percent, which may have been what Rubio was referring to.
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The issue that has many confused is that Harwood’s claim Wednesday evening is different from the one that he corrected last week.
“No, you did”, Rubio insisted. Since you’re a champion of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, don’t you have that backward?
“No, you’re wrong”, Rubio said. I did not misstate it, about his tax plan.
Harwood also lied about The Tax Foundation findings.
HARWOOD: No, I did not.
HARWOOD: Senator, the Tax Foundation said after-tax income for the top 1 percent under your plan would go up 27.9 percent.
RUBIO: Well, you’re talking about – yeah.
Harwood’s line Wednesday evening was that the senator’s plan would favor the wealthy over the middle class. So yeah, someone who makes more money… But the greatest gains, percentage-wise, for people, are gonna be at the lower end of our plan, and here’s why: because in addition to a general personal exemption, we are increasing the per-child tax credit for working families. “By the end of the budget window or slightly later, though, we estimate that the reforms would have generated so much extra growth that federal revenues would be higher than under current law, and its budget deficit smaller”.
CHRIS STIREWALT: Because you’re so arrogant that you absolutely believe that you’re so much smarter than everybody with an R next to their name, and you know that these guys are troglodytes, and you are smarter than they are – and you get squashed like a bug.
PolitiFact: Rubio’s Plan Cuts Taxes For Millionaires By More Than Three Times Median Household Income. That is a dramatic tax decrease for hard-working people who run their own businesses. Rubio then went after Harwood for previously writing a story on his tax plan that he later had to correct. You know why? Because the more you tax something, the less of it you get.
“John, do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?”
Interestingly, Harwood corrected the record concerning Rubio’s plan on Twitter, but not in his actual New York Times story.
Harwood even retweeted Marco Rubio’s policy director saying, “In other words, lowest 10% see more than double the benefits of top 1%”.
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There were a few questions about whether or not Harwood, who tends to reflexively spout a lot of liberal opinions, was an appropriate debate moderator.
