Lie #3: 40% of Americans pay no taxes.
This canard, too, has been in circulation since last summer. Parroting right-wing papers including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune Review, the McCain campaignargued, "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hard working families to give'welfare' to those who pay none." While Sean Hannity and Rudy Giulianiechoed the "welfare" charge in January, on Monday, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischerkept up the drum beat, deeming Obama's middle class tax cuts a "moralproblem" when "50% of the country gets benefits without paying forthem."