Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

26
"By Far the Vast Majority of My Tax Cuts
Go to Those at the Bottom"
You'll remember from Chapter One that in the first debate with Gore then candidate Bush
said of his tax cuts, "By far the vast majority of the help goes to those at the bottom end of
the economic ladder." In the South Carolina primary debate with John McCain he said, "By
far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom end of the spectrum." As you
can see, he loved this line. He repeated versions of it everywhere.
Shall we parse this statement? Let's start at the end and work backward. "Bottom end
of the spectrum." What's that gotta mean? At least the bottom 50 percent, right? Otherwise,
the word "bottom" in this context is meaningless. He couldn't have meant the bottom 99 percent,
could he? That would just be crazy.
How about "majority"? Well, that's unambiguous. It means more than 50 percent. So,
so far, at the very least, the bottom half of the American people are getting 50 percent, plus a
dollar, of Bush's tax cut.
Now let's add "vast." "Vast majority." "Vast" is big. Huge. Like the "vast" reaches of
space. Very, very big. So, what's a "vast majority?" 90 percent? 85? It's subjective, I admit.
So let's go with a very conservative 70 percent. At this point in our parsing, the bottom 50
percent are getting 70 (give or take) percent of Bush's tax cut.
But wait. It's not just a "vast majority." It's by far a vast majority. Okay, let's think
about that. What does "by far" mean? When you say a restaurant is "by far" the best steak
house in town, you're really saying something. When you tell your spouse that sex with her or
him is "by far" the best sex you've ever had, you may not be telling the truth—much in the
same way that Bush wasn't in this case—but you are definitely trying to score some points.
So I'm going to say that "by far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to those at the bottom"
would mean that the poorest 50 percent were getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 to
99 percent of Bush's tax cut.
That's fair, right? That's a fair parsing.
As I said before, the bottom 60 percent got 14.7 percent of that tax cut.