Zombie Lie Laboratory Creates 62 Percent Tax Rate Plan

The Wall Street Journal editorial page at work
By Ryan Chittum
Columbia Journalism Review

Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board hacks out an instant classic on how to mislead people with numbers.

The question-as-headline is your second red flag that this just might be a deeply disingenuous op-ed (the first is that it’s on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page):

A 62% Top Tax Rate?

The top marginal tax rate is just 35 percent now, of course. So how does Moore come up with the idea that Obama and the Democrats are pitching a 62 percent tax rate for the rich? Disingenuously.

First, here’s a classic example of misleading readers with an apples and oranges comparison:

If the Democrats’ millionaire surtax were to happen—and were added to other tax increases already enacted last year and other leading tax hike ideas on the table this year—this could leave the U.S. with a combined federal and state top tax rate on earnings of 62%. That’s more than double the highest federal marginal rate of 28% when President Reagan left office in 1989. Welcome back to the 1970s.

(Original here.)