Clintons Tax Hike Debate and Poll: "PRO 1
Republicans like to save 'Clinton's 1993 tax plan was the largest tax increase in history'

CON 1.1
After controlling for cyclical effects, Congressional Budget Office data show that total tax revenues increased by 0.8 percent of GDP between 1992 and 1995. This is far from the first time tax receipts have increased by 0.8 percent of GDP in a three-year period. In fact, in the past quarter century alone, tax receipts after controlling for cyclical effects have increased by increments larger than 0.8 percent of GDP over a three year period at least six times

CON 1.2
Most taxpayers did not see their federal taxes increase. The 1993 tax increase, however, applied overwhelmingly to high-income taxpayers. The vast majority of American taxpayers saw no increase at all in their income taxes and were touched only by a 4.3 cent increase in the gas tax, which costs a typical household $38 per year.

PRO 2
In May, 1996 the Republican National Committee issued a press release contending 'the average family pays 38.2 percent of its income in taxes,'

CON 2.1
A figure of 27 percent is more accurate. Virtually all analysts without a political axe to grind use the tax burdens of the median family (the family in the middle of the income spectrum) rather than average tax burdens when describing the level of taxes that typical middle-class families owe. Using averages rather than medians overstates the income of the typical American household by 36 percent. It overstates the proportion of income it pays in federal income tax by 71 percent.

CON 2.2
If tax rates are increased on only the wealthy, average tax rates rise, but the tax rates that typical Americans face do not. This is another area where data on average tax burdens can be used in a misleading fashio"