Math With Doug Holtz-Eakin

It seems that John "Straight Talk" McCain has ads up claiming that Barack Obama has voted to raise taxes on individuals earning "as little as $32,000 per year." This claim is indisputably false. Beyond that, Doug Holtz-Eakin's defense of the claim, namely that Obama voted for a budget resolution that would raise the tax rate for people currently in the 25 percent bracket, and that bracket "begins at an income level of $31,850" is positively risible. Holtz-Eakin is referring to the level of taxable income not current income at which the bracket begins, the correct figure is $32,500 for 2008, and Obama's vote was for 2009 at which point the cutoff would be higher. But that would be a taxable income level translating to something over $41,500 for an individual with no dependents or over $83,000 for a married couple.