$84

Yes, dumdum, you do own a stake in a timber company, you smug piece of sh!t. And you got $84 in income from it in 1991. And that makes you a "small business owner". And that makes John Kerry's statment true. You ass.

From factcheck.org (not, factcheck.com for those of you who are Vice Presidents of this country). (Google mirror here due to heavy post-debate traffic):

"President Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business owner" under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a "small business owner" in 2000 based on $314 of "business income," but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as "royalties" on a different tax schedule.)"

So I don't know if he's got so much $$$ and so many different interests that he honestly didn't know he owned part of a timber company (tough life, ain't it?). Or if he was just flat out lying.

Betcha you can guess what I think.


---update---

So CNN this morning (day afer the debate) reported that it's not quite that cut and dried. Evidently Bush owns (in whole or in part) a holdings company. This holdings company owns (among other things) a small stake in a timber company. Evidently, Bush's $84 was income from the holdings company, before they had acquired the timber company.

So, while I have no doubt he's considered a small business owner, and takes every tax cut which that allows, he may not technically have owned a timber company.

But I still don't like him.