As the old saying goes, there are two certainties of life:  death and taxes.  When it comes to political campaigns, taxes are always a hot topic among politicians and voters.

Recently, the Republican Party of Florida brought up the issue of taxes in regards to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.  The RPOF posted this on their Facebook page:

Hillary Clinton "voted to raise taxes on workers earning as little as $41,500."

Our partners at PolitiFact looked into this claim to see if it was accurate.  PolitiFact reporter Joshua Gillin says that the RPOF's post rates MOSTLY FALSE on the Truth-O-Meter.  Gillin says that certain resolutions and proposals are being represented as official policy changes.

"What we're talking about here is a 2008 vote regarding budget guidelines," said Gillin.  "At that time, Hillary Clinton was the Senator from New York.  The vote was actually a non-binding vote about how the Senate could move forward and put together a budget package.  This was a time when what were known as the "Bush tax cuts" were coming to an end.  Tax rates had been lowered in 2001 and 2003, and as part of that lowering, they were scheduled to go back to their original levels by 2010.  Clinton's affirmative vote was basically an acknowledgement that this had been the plan and that everything was going to proceed as previously planned."

Gillin further explains that the "raising taxes" part of the claim is somewhat of a misrepresentation.

"The dollar amount that the RPOF is citing is actually the lowest level of the tax bracket that would have been changed following the reverting of those tax cuts," said Gillin.  "You have to keep in mind, too, that when this was all happening, Clinton was running for president, and at the time, she said that she did not want to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year.  It brings up the bigger tax question:  if you have a temporary tax cut that expires after a period of time, is it fair to call that end-of-period adjustment a tax hike, or just a return to where the tax levels should actually be?"

Because a lot of assumptions and extrapolations were made coming out of the 2008 budget discussions, PolitiFact rates the Republican Party of Florida's statement MOSTLY FALSE on the Truth-O-Meter.

 

SOURCES: Clinton voted to raise taxes?