Mitch distorts facts on CNN

Media Matters catches Mitch McConnell spreading falsehoods yesterday on CNN:

During the February 22 edition of CNN's State of the Union, host John King allowed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to revive the debunked claim that letting the Bush tax cuts expire for Americans making more than $250,000 would affect a large percentage of small businesses. After King stated that "the Obama administration says it will, as he promised during the campaign, let the Bush tax cuts go away for Americans who make more than $250,000 a year," McConnell replied, "[W]hen the -- our good friends on the other side of the aisle say raising the taxes on the wealthy, what they're really talking about is small business. A vast majority of American small businesses pay taxes as individual taxpayers. So, we've got to ask ourselves whether increasing capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and taxes on small business is a great thing to do in the middle of a deep recession."

Likewise, a February 22 Hill article reported: "McConnell said that tax hikes on the wealthy, which [President] Obama is expected to propose in his first budget, would hit small businesses."

McConnell's assertion is a revival of a false talking point made by Sen. John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign. As Media Matters for America documented, McCain falsely claimed that "[i]f 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 Tax Policy Center's table of 2007 tax returns that reported small business income, 481,000 of those returns -- about 2 percent -- are in the top two income tax brackets, which include all filers with taxable incomes of more than $250,000.