"Up-to-$800" My Precious!

I have to be honest, I don’t really understand this:

The president’s Labor Day speech in Detroit featured an assertion that contained a number of warning signs that it might be an errant fact: “biggest middle-class tax cut in history.” [. . .] We decided to put the president’s claim to the test.

We took an informal survey in our office and asked people what they thought the president’s statement meant. Everyone agreed he was claiming the biggest tax cut in terms of dollars.

Imagine our surprise when the White House responded that he wasn’t talking about dollars at all.

“The point the president was making that is there is not a tax cut that has been enjoyed by such a broad section of the population,” an administration official said, pointing to a report that said that 95 percent of working families received some kind of tax cut under the Making Work Pay provision in his stimulus bill.

Huh?

Yeah…but then there is this:

In other words, this isn’t about the size of the tax cut, but about the fact that every working family, except those making more than $190,000, received as much as $800 in tax cuts.

Oh. “Up to $800.” Would it be okay for me to here borrow the words of our First Lady, when discussing the $600 “stimulus” of 2008?

“You’re getting $600. What can you do with that? Not to be ungrateful or anything. But maybe it pays down a bill, but it doesn’t pay down every bill every month..

Barack’s approach is that the short-term quick fix kinda stuff sounds good. And it may even feel good that first month when you get that check. And then you go out and you buy a pair of earrings.”

I’m not even sure the $800 tax cut — if spread over twice-monthly paychecks, or included in tax-filings — was noticed or noticeable. Not to be ungrateful, or anything.

Read the rest of the WaPo fact-check. It’s interesting — seems John F. Kennedy was the tax-cut king — but perhaps the most interesting thing about it, is that it exists, at all.

And Jennifer Rubin has more

UPDATE:
While searching for the FLOTUS quote, I found this trip down memory lane:

February 11, 2009; Accord reached on final stimulus bill: $789 billion for 3.5 million jobs House and Senate negotiators settled Wednesday on a $789 billion package of tax cuts and new federal spending meant to save the US economy from a deep recession, or worse.

And here comes another 300 Billion,; this time, we’re told, it’s going to work!

I really wish they’d stop saving us, already.

Related:
The $13-a-week stimulus