Tax Cuts: Obama v. Bush

The following is a post on Daily Kos by brooklynbadboy entitled Obama Bigger Tax Cutter Than Bush. And yet it's a common Republican claim that Obama has raised taxes.

The Center for American Progress crunched the numbers and discovered:

With the huge Recovery Act tax cuts and the enormous December 2010 tax cuts combined, President Obama has already signed into law tax cuts amounting to more than $900 billion from 2009 through 2012. Even after accounting for legislation that the president signed that increased revenue during that period, President Obama has cut taxes by more than $850 billion in his first term, or approximately 1.5 percent of GDP.

That is compared to the $474 billion in tax cuts enacted by George W. Bush in his first term. If the latest tax cuts included in President Obama's American Jobs Act are passed, he will be the biggest tax cutter of the modern era. Bigger than Reagan. Bigger than Bush. That's saying something!

Yet, despite this fact, we've seen poll after poll indicate that people still believe President Obama has raised their taxes.

Two things:
1. The idea that tax cuts bring economic growth should be thoroughly debunked by now. But it isn't.
2. It has to be political injustice of the worst order to be the biggest tax cutter ever and not get any credit.