Speaking of Incompetence

This is the title of my last pre-election column, which Townhall.com has online. WashingtonTimes.com will also have it up on Sunday.

In it, I question more of Senator Kerry's statements of "fact," as I have done for the past four weeks(the old ones are also at townhall, or cato.org).

A quick summary of two points:

1. Kerry says, "Over the last four years . . . wages of the average family have fallen by $1,500." That figure (from the reliably partisan Economic Policy Institute) was really about three years not four, incomes not wages, households not families and -- most important -- it was about pre-tax income. Family taxes fell more than $1,500 thanks to you-know-who. Other than that, it is scarcely news that incomes two years after a recssion (2003) were still lower than a year before the recession (2000). Median houshehold income in 1997 was still lower than in 1989, when another you-know-who was President. And that's not counting the tax hikes of 1991 and 1993, which set us back even further.

2. Kerry's only seemingly serious economic plan to date (other than lavish spending and higher tax rates) has been to cut the corporate tax to 33.25% (wow) in exchange for taxing foreigen subsidiaries into oblivion. Yet President Bush just signed a law to cut the tax to 32% for most industrial companies. Although Kerry still talks about his 5% corporate tax cut, it would now require a 4% corporate tax hike. Not to mention destroying any chance of competing in foreign markets (where countries like Germany, France and Canada do not tax offshore earnings at all).

As a long-time absentee Senator, of course, Mr. Kerry probably has no idea the tax law was changed. He's not a quick study. He's not a slow study. He's just a back bench rep of the chattering class. If it sounds good, who cares if it's true?