Mike Pence lies about tax increases

At a press conference earlier this week, Rep. Mike Pence decided to push the latest GOP talking point on taxes:

“The American people deserve to know that, should Democrats get their way, every income tax bracket will increase on January 1, 2011. Every single one.”

Unfortunately for Mike Pence, the crew at PolitiFact decided to actually check to see if this was true. And, not surprisingly, they discovered it was yet another lie from the House Republican Conference leader:

While the legislative drafting is still in process, the Democratic majority in Congress has made clear that it plans to extend tax cuts for all but the top couple percentage points of the income distribution. So it’s highly misleading for him to say that Democrats actually want to see all the bill’s cuts expire. Indeed, Pence’s comment verges on a scare tactic. While Pence would have been entirely accurate to say, “If the Democrats fail to extend the expiring tax cuts, all tax brackets will increase,” he didn’t. What he did say merits a ruling of False.

As Jed at DailyKos pointed out, “Even Politifact, which generally avoids ascribing motives, said Pence’s false claim ‘verges on a scare tactic.'” But Politifact, like most Hoosiers, is well acquainted with Mike Pence’s history of lying – they’ve found as many “False” claims from Pence as they have “True” and “Barely True” combined.