NewsMax is reporting that Joe Lieberman, D-Conn, has "just moved to the right of President Bush on economic policy and is now calling for massive, sweeping and immediate tax cuts" in a "Reaganesque" fashion. As if that wasn't shocking enough, Lieberman is quoted as saying, "The president didn't cause the economic problems but he's not given the leadership to get us out of them."

In comments to WABC Radio's John Gambling, Lieberman said his Reaganesque tax cut plan would include "a new investment tax credit, a zero capital gains rate and some consumption tax incentives, including a rebate for 34 million Americans and a sales tax holiday for the holiday shopping season."

Can this be true, or is April Fools coming late this year? Last year Lieberman was one of the most outspoken opponents of the Bush tax cut, and democrats have done everything they can to pin our economic troubles on the Bush tax cut.

Well, very little research shows that NewsMax appears to be misunderstanding the Senator's plan. Lieberman's own web site shows a press release from just four days ago where he called for "postponing" the next phase of Bush tax cut. NewsMax also fails to note that the 34 million Americans that Lieberman wants to give a rebate to are identified as "taxpayers who did not receive one in 2001." Of course, the reason those 'taxpayers' didn't receive a rebate in 2001 is because they didn't pay taxes in 2001.

Lieberman is also calling for "extended unemployment insurance benefits to maintain the purchasing power of the unemployed." Yeah, lets reward people who are unemployed and give them incentive to go out and buy a lot of stuff they cannot afford. That doesn't sound very 'Reaganesque' to me.

As for the sales tax holiday, who is going to pay for that? Sales taxes are collected by the states. It would appear that Lieberman wants to mandate a sales tax holiday to the states by rebating the revenue from the federal kitty. Not only is that not a sales tax holiday, but the extra layer of federal bureaucracy would actually make it a tax increase. (Of course, it'd only be paid by those in the top tax brackets anyway, so who cares, right?) If Lieberman pulls it off, he's a socialist genius by shifting a fair and balanced usage tax to a progressive form of income tax. This could change the entire socialist democratic agenda!

In short, Lieberman seems to have some good ideas, but they are intermixed with socialist liberal ideals. In his press release he even praises FDR, when in fact economic recovery happened despite FDR. NewsMax gets this one wrong, and their characterization of Lieberman as 'Reaganesque' is insulting to Reagan and anyone who subscribes to his beliefs. Perhaps I was expecting too much of them to do even a miniscule amount of fact checking.