Tampa Bay Times "PoltiFact "Pants on Fire" Rulings

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Rep. Connie Mack, a Republican from Florida running for the U.S. Senate, called it "the largest tax on the American people in history" in a press release. Florida GOP congressional candidate state Rep. Gary Aubuchon said on Twitter that the "ruling confirms Obamacare is the largest tax increase in U.S. history.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Landry, R-Pa., put it this way: "This is the largest tax increase on the poor and the middle class in the history of this country"; and Alabama Republican Party chair Bill Armistead said that "The United States Supreme Court has essentially created the largest tax increase in American history."

Then there's Limbaugh, who turned up the rhetoric on radio the way only he can.

Forget the United States,"Obamacare is nothing more than the largest tax increase in the history of the world," he declared.

This claim is wrong.

While the health care law certainly is, on the whole, a tax increase, it’s not the largest in American history -- and as such -- cannot be the largest in the history of the world. (Luckily, there's enough U.S.-based research that we don't have to explore the tax increases of the Roman Empire, adjusted for inflation.)