CNN's Snow falsely suggested McCain wants to preserve only Bush's middle-class tax cuts

On the January 14 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, in a report about the Republican presidential primary in Michigan, correspondent Mary Snow aired a clip of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) saying, "Clearly, we need to make the tax cuts permanent." Immediately afterward, Snow asserted that McCain "wants to make President Bush's middle-class tax cuts permanent." But McCain does not favor the permanent extension of just middle-class tax cuts; he favors making permanent all of Bush's tax cuts, including those that largely benefit wealthy Americans.

Indeed, in May 2001, when Congress was first considering the tax cuts, McCain said in a May 26, 2001, floor statement that he opposed the bill because "so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." He subsequently changed his position, voting to extend the tax cuts, and he now supports their permanent extension, notwithstanding his prior view that they disproportionately favor the wealthy......

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