There You Go Again, Ketchup Boy

An old friend, an esteemed expert on matters of international tax, has put forth his opinion on some of John Kerry's latest meanderings in an e-mail, which he graciously allowed me to re-publish:

I read a Kerry press release (I really am adhering to my news embargo, but this was in Tax Notes, so it doesn't count) about how Bush is "paying to export American jobs." How? Because W is just a tad tentative about destroying an anti-deferral tax system that we've had since 1962 and that already is more onerous than that imposed by an other OECD country. But get this, Kerry's press release said that W wants to "pay" for this by "raising taxes on U.S. manufacturers who export goods overseas."

All I can assume is that he means that the administration is planning to repeal the FSC/ETI regime. Now, I am not trying to get too technical here, but ALL of you must be aware that this has been the single most significant item on the Congressional tax agenda for more than a year. Why? Oh, only because the regime has been repeatedly found to be an illegal subsidy by the WTO and because the Europeans have been imposing millions (if not billions) of dollars of penalties upon us since March.

So I guess Kerry is really saying either that (1) he is the only person on Capitol Hill too stupid to realize the current state of our trade relations or (2) that he isn't going to go it alone in Iraq, but darn it, when it comes to maintaining illegal trade subsidies that will eventually lead to escalating penalties (WTO penalties are imposed on a schedule, so the Europeans can ratchet up the penalties (in the form of higher taxes on US goods) every few months) and acrimony with our leading trading partners, he is man enough to defy the whole world?

I am sure both sides twist stuff like that, but it is so stupid, so intentionally misleading, that when you actually catch Kerry at something like that, you have to wonder how you can trust a single word out of his mouth.

Keep in mind, this gentleman voted for Bill Clinton twice. Then again, I think most Democrats would prefer to be voting for Clinton over Kerry. Hell, if I were given the option, I would probably vote for Clinton over Kerry.