Dave Camp Needs a Fact Checker

(h/t Wonk Room)

Dave Camp (MI-R) should get his facts straight before opening his mouth on national television. He appeared on CNBC yesterday to discuss the House Democrats health care legislation that proposes a surtax on wealthy individuals in order to finance a portion of the $1.5 trillion cost of health reform. The surtax rates would be 5.4 percent for couples earning more than $1 million, 1.5 percent on couples with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million, and 1 percent on incomes over $350,000. ($280,000 a year for individuals.)

When asked about the surtax, this is what Camp said:

This is going to be a massive tax increase, half of which will be paid by small business. We expect that as many as 2 out of 3 manufacturers could pay significantly higher taxes under this.

Camp is so wildly off the mark he makes Sarah Palin look like a genius. According to the Wonk Room's Igor Volsky, "the overwhelming majority of small business owners earn far less than $350,000, and thus will not be affected by the tax. Of people who earn most of their income from their own business, 98 percent make less than $250,000, while “more than half have income below $30,000 and 80 percent make less than $100,000.”

That's a far cry from the figures used by Camp. Citizens for Tax Justice also ran the numbers and found that about 5 percent of actual small businesses would be affected by the surtax.

And what percent of Michigan taxpayers did CTJ find would pay a graduated surcharge? 0.7%

And before Dave Camp jumps in to defend those 0.7%, here's another fact from CTJ: "Under this proposal, the richest 1.3 percent of U.S. taxpayers would have an estimated total tax increase of $550 billion over ten years, which is considerably less than the total tax cuts this group received over the 2001-2010 period."

The millions of uninsured people in this country deserve better than wild exaggerations from politicians like Dave Camp. They deserve health care.


(Cross-posted at Blogging for Michigan.)