John Harwood, Marco Rubio, and the tax question

By Byron York, Byron York

Published December 20, 2015

There's no defending the CNBC team that conducted the Republican debate in Boulder Wednesday night. Many of their questions were biased and argumentative, and sometimes veered far afield from the economic topics that were to be the debate's focus.

But when it comes to one particular issue — a hotly-disputed question from CNBC's John Harwood to Marco Rubio on Rubio's tax plan — the critics are wrong.

Several voices on the Right have accused Harwood of lying about the Rubio proposal. "@JohnJHarwood blatantly lied about Rubio's tax plan," tweeted The Federalist's Sean Davis. "Harwood was caught outright lying in a loaded question to Sen. Marco Rubio," said Breitbart. "Harwood doubles down on lie to Rubio," said Newsbusters.

The critics contend Harwood lied when he said to Rubio that the Tax Foundation "scored your tax plan and concluded that you give nearly twice as much of a gain in after-tax income to the top 1 percent as to people in the middle of the income scale."