McCain campaign's week of controversies, admitted falsehoods
# As Benen noted, during a July 7 town hall meeting in Denver, McCain said: "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed." On the July 8 edition of CNN's American Morning, McCain said during a discussion of Social Security that young people "pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken, that's why we can fix it." As The Washington Post reported on July 9, "If that payment system is a disgrace, it has been one since Social Security was created during the Great Depression. For as long as the popular program has existed, today's workers have paid the benefits of today's retirees." The Post added: "Reaction to McCain's statement has been slow to burble, but it is beginning to burst."
# On July 7, Sen. John McCain's falsely asserted: "If you are one of the 23 million small business owners in America who files as an individual rate payer, Senator Obama is going to raise your tax rates." In fact, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small-business income, 481,000, not 23 million, of those returns are in the top two income tax brackets -- which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on July 10 that "McCain's camp acknowledges that only individual business owners making more than $250,000 would pay higher taxes under Obama's plan -- but it insists those businesses will be hurt by the Democrat's proposals."
# In the wake of Iran's test of long-range missiles, McCain asserted: "It's my understanding is that this missile test was conducted by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote. He called it provocative, a provocative step. The fact is, this is a terrorist organization and it should have been branded as such." As CNN.com's Political Ticker blog reported on July 11, "McCain also missed that vote" on designating the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. Political Ticker reported that "[t]he McCain campaign admits the error." Additionally, as Political Ticker noted, Obama also sponsored legislation that "would have designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization."
