The White House has been attacking the Republican tax plan as targeted for the rich (by 73 percent) and Democrats in Congress have accused it of excluding the poor. But a Joint Economic Committee analysis shows Treasury has twisted the statistics to greatly inflate the level of middle-class income to support both these attacks:

• The Office of Tax Analysis at Treasury uses a formula called "Family Economic Income" to redefine middle-class family income.

• The formula includes "potential" income -- though maybe never used -- to compute family income, such as rental value of one's own home, the built-up value of pension benefits, Individual Retirement (IRA) Account balances, employer fringe benefits, etc.

• For example, using this formula, a family earning $50,000 and living in a house with potential monthly rent value of $1,000 would be reported as having total annual income of $62,000 ($50,000 plus 12 x $1,000).

• Though the number of families earning between $50,00 and $70,000 are only 14 million, the formula jumps the number to 17.3 million by including these additional potential sources of income.

Donald Lambro, "Keeping an Eye on Total Tax Burdens," Washington Times, June 26, 1997.

For more on Joint Economic Committee analyses go to http://www.house.gov/jec/press.htm