Arguing that the Obama campaign has become a slippery as the McCain camp, Ruth Marcus offers a puzzling throwaway line on the McCain campaign's health care plan. "On health care," she says, "Obama misleadingly accuses McCain of wanting to impose a $3.6 trillion tax hike on employer-provided insurance." Marcus doesn't go into more detail on why it's misleading, and I'm having trouble figuring it out. On June 10th, Doug Holtz-Eakin told McClatchey that their "tax measure would generate about $3.6 trillion over 10 years, which would pay for the tax credits, making the entire proposal budget-neutral." He said the same thing to The Washington Post and The New York Times. When people say a tax measure "generates" income, they're saying that it raises taxes in order to increase revenue. That part is not in doubt. Nor is the $3.6 trillion figure. So there's nothing misleading about the Obama campaign's claim, at least that I can see.
