10 things the GOP doesn't want you to know about taxes

With the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 once again set to expire at the end of this year, President Obama on Monday once again proposed temporarily extending them only for families earning less than $250,000 annually. Predictably, his Republican rival Mitt Romney called the return of upper-income tax rates to their slightly higher Clinton-era levels a "massive tax increase" for "on families, job creators, and small businesses."

But while Romney's regurgitation of these tired Republican talking points comes as no surprise, it doesn't make them any more true. Here, then, are 10 things the GOP doesn't want you to know about taxes.

(Click a link to jump to the details for each below)

1. President Obama Cut Taxes for Almost All Working Americans
2. Tax Cuts Don't Pay for Themselves
3. Almost All Working Americans Pay Taxes
4. The GOP's "Job Creators" Don't Create Jobs
5. Low Capital Gains Taxes Fuel Income Inequality...
6. ... But Not Investment
7. The Estate Tax Has Virtually No Impact on Family Farms and Businesses
8. Income Inequality is at an 80 Year High...
9. ... While the Federal Tax Burden is at a 60 Year Low
10. Which of the $1 Trillion in Tax Breaks Will GOP End?

1.  President Obama Cut Taxes for Almost All Working Americans

Back in April, Bloomberg News correctly reported that "Obama Delivers on Tax Cut Promises as Increases for Rich Blocked." Of course, you'd never know if you listened to Mitt Romney, who claimed that the president "has already raised taxes on millions of Americans, but he won't stop there."

During the campaign four years ago, then-Sen. Barack Obama called for families making over $250,000 a year to return to their Clinton-era of income tax rate of 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent under President Bush. With his stimulus program in February 2009, President Obama as promised delivered tax relief for 95 percent of working families. As Steve Benen noted at the time, it was the largest two-year tax cut in American history. But thanks to the jet-engine decibel level of right-wing rage, a cacophony willingly amplified by the media, that accomplishment was drown out. As the New York Times asked just before the 2010 midterm elections, "What if a president cut Americans' income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?"

In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know.

And that was before President Obama and Democrats in Congress secured a two-year reduction in Americans' payroll taxes.

What Americans may also not know if that both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan plan on delivering another windfall for the wealthy even as they hike taxes for working Americans.

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