New Walker TV Ad Repeats A Big Lie On Taxes

It's a big lie because the truth has been explained and publicized, but he repeats the falsehood because repetition in a TV ad will lead people to believe it.

And, yes, I know: "lie" and "big Lie" are big words, and are over-used in the blogosphere, but what else can you call it?

This is beyond parsing and spin.

PolitiFact again notes today that Walker's "no tax Increase" claim is negated by the tax increases in his budget previously identified as such by the non-partisan arm of the legislature responsible for tracking and vetting state fiscal matters:

Claim: "We kept our promise to balance the budget without raising taxes, and without massive layoffs, protecting jobs, and eliminating a $3.6 billion deficit."

In 2011, we gave Walker a Promise Broken on his pledge to "oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes."

In his first budget, Walker proposed tax increases in the form of reduced tax credits for low-income homeowners and renters, and low-income working families. In the budget he signed, the increases totaled about $70 million over two years, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Walker notes that his tax cuts totaled more than those increases in the credits.

I have been writing about this for a year - - and it really baffles me: that Walker won't be straight about this because the anti-tax rhetoric from the right is so inflexible that dishonesty is considered the preferable approach.

He even repeated this "no tax increase" fiction in his State of the State speech.

What Walker is really saying is, 'we only raised taxes on low-income people, and those little people don't count.'

He's also saying, 'the truth doesn't matter.'