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GW is hiding a different truth behind his lie about owning a timber company.
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By Mike Cuenca | October 12, 2004
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GW has been caught lying once again. And as is often the case, there's a
little lie out front that he hopes we'll all talk about, while ignoring
a big lie behind it.
During the second presidential debate, Bush treated me to one of my
all-time favorite moments in presidential election watching.
Here's the verbatim exchange from the
official transcript of the debate:
KERRY: The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's
counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business.
That's how they do things. That's just not right.
BUSH: I own a timber company?
(LAUGHTER)
That's news to me.
(LAUGHTER)
Need some wood?
(LAUGHTER)
The sight and sound of GW trying to joke his way out of being caught in
another lie was priceless. Right off, I figured that's the kind of fact
that Kerry wouldn't use if he wasn't sure of it. And as it turns out,
Bush does, in fact, own a timber company. According to his 2003 Executive Branch Financial Disclosure
Statement, he owns LSTF, LLC, "a limited liability company
organized on 02-10-03 for the purpose of the production of trees for
commercial sales."
Bush's ownership of a timber company raises questions of another
troubling conflict of interest. You'd have to have been living in a
vacuum to not know that Bush has made few friends among
environmentalists during his term as president. Could it be that his
decisions to open up more forests for exploitation is motivated by his
own business interests? Would that surprise anyone?
As an example, back in May of 2001, Congressman Jay Inslee
(D-Washington) released a press briefing regarding the president's plan
to sort of support the National Forest Roadless Rule, which protects
national forest land from invasive and destructive road building. But
the timber industry can't harvest trees if they can't build roads into
the forest. So of course the timber industry opposes the rule.
According to Inslee's briefing, Bush was maneuvering to
allow local authorities to decide what areas would be protected and
what areas would be open to road building. This would, in effect, allow
Bush to say he supports the rule, while leaving the back door open to
the timber industry to pressure local authorities to let them exploit
virgin forests. The briefing quoted several environmentalists who
weren't too happy about it:
"President Bush appears to be retreating from the ring and letting the
timber industry do the dirty work. Rather than putting up a fight
to defend places where Americans love to hunt and hike, President Bush
is letting the state of Idaho and the timber industry attack these wild
forests," said Bill Arthur, Sierra Club Northwest/Alaska Regional
Director. "Conceding that Americans want to protect these areas
for recreation and clean water, the Bush administration is afraid to
just dump the roadless plan. Instead, it has taken a tack where
it can claim credit for upholding the rule while allowing the State of
Idaho and the timber industry to gnaw away at the edges until no
protections remain."
And:
"This just another assault on the environment by President Bush, only
this time he's trying to sugar coat it for the public," said Jon Owen
of the Washington Wilderness Coalition. "Make no mistake, this is
a slap in the face to the American people and a pat on the back to the
timber industry."
So, here's another issue where Bush apparently wants to have it both
ways. (And doesn't Bush accuse Kerry of doing just that?) Now that we
know he owns a timber company and has an interest in the well-being of
the timber industry, one must wonder how much he's acting to increase
his own economic well-being.
But this revelation from the debate, that Bush does own a timber
company, is a little lie compared to the big lie that Bush is telling
about Kerry's tax plan. Bush says 900,000 small businesses will be
impacted by Kerry's plan to tax the rich (up from 35% to 39.6%). He
says that to frighten people into thinking that when Kerry says he's
taxing the rich, he's really taxing lots of "little people"/small
business owners, and that by taxing those small business owners,
they'll invest less of their money in their businesses, perhaps hiring
fewer people, and that way also impacting the middle class.
And that big lie has many other lies wrapped up in it. First off, the
way Bush is twisting the numbers, they include wealthy Americans
such as himself. He and Cheney both can be or have been considered
small business owners. Anyone who files a tax return and shows income
from a small business—even if they make a million dollars from a large
business—is counted as a small business owner.
Then, I'm thinking, if these small business owners are making more
than $200,000 of income from their business, that's still $200,000 of
income. Income is the amount left over after the costs of doing
business. Income is profit. So if that small business owner is making
more than $200,000 profit, what's it going to hurt them to be taxed 3.6% more than they are now?
In fact, since that income is the amount left over after all the
investing in their company they do, how is that going to negatively
impact their small business? They'll still be able to deduct all their
business expenses; they won't pay taxes on those expenses. Unless
they're desperately greedy and believe they need more than whatever
they're already making, they'll likely still invest in their company.
And then there's the number of small business owners Bush says will be
affected: 900,000. According to FactCheck.org and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy
Center, the number of small business owners that would be
affected by Kerry's plan is actually 471,000—half what Bush is
claiming. And of those small business owners, only 71,000 filed
deductions for wages paid to employees. So very few employees could
even possibly be affected.
And the really big lie about this example of Bush's fear-mongering is
that there are 33 million (33,000,000) small businesses, which means
that more than 32 million small businesses won't be affected by Kerry's
plan to tax the rich.
Make no mistake about it, GW and Dick Cheney want you to be afraid of
John Kerry because they are afraid you'll vote for John Kerry. But if
you really want to be afraid of someone, GW provides many, many real
reasons for you to be afraid of him. His pattern of lying is just one
of them.
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