Study: Rubio's Tax Plan Helps Rich More Than Middle Class

A contentious exchange in Wednesday's debate between CNBC moderator John Harwood and Senator Marco Rubio prompted outcries from conservatives accusing the journalist of “lies” when he cited a study saying the Floridian's tax plan gives larger benefits to the richest Americans than to the middle class.

Harwood was correct. Rubio sidestepped and answered that people “at the lower end” enjoy the largest gain under his plan, and he was also correct in percentage terms.

The study in March by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation shows the distribution. Rubio's plan would lead to average after-tax income gains of 27.9 percent for the top 1 percent of earners, considerably more than for middle-income earners. It would also lead to an average gain of 55.9 percent for those in the bottom 10 percent of the income spectrum, under “dynamic scoring” assumptions, the study says.

Challenged by Harwood, Rubio told him, “You wrote a story on it, and you had to go back and correct it,” which Harwood denied. Rubio repeated the claim in a fundraising e-mail on Wednesday. The senator was referring to one of Harwood's tweets, spokesman Alex Conant said.