For someone who's never thrown his hat into the ring before now, Doug Hoffer, the Democratic nominee for state auditor, has come out swinging like a seasoned pro against... Brian Dubie?

That's right. Hoffer hasn't been elected auditor yet, but he's already fact-checking the GOP gubernatorial candidate's numbers and challenging his claim that Vermont's income tax rate is higher than Maine, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Hoffer called Dubie's statement "terribly misleading"  and incorrect.

"It is disingenuous to talk about Vermont's 'income tax' for the simple reason that Vermont does not have one income tax," Hoffer wrote, in a press statement. "It has a progressive tax system so residents pay at very different rates depending on their income. I am certain Mr. Dubie knows this so it makes me wonder why he would use such language."

Hoffer suggests that Mr. Dubie was referring to the "top marginal rate" which, he says, applies to less than 1 percent of all tax filers. Moreover, he says, because of differences between state tax systems, "the actual taxes paid by residents of different states is not at all what Mr. Dubie would have us believe."

Hoffer offers the following numbers, which were put together by the Legislature's Joint Fiscal Office in 2007:

"The discourse on economic development and tax policy are too important to be based on misinformation," Hoffer concludes. "Sadly, that has been the case for much of the last eight years. It's unfortunate that Mr. Dubie is picking up where Jim Douglas left off.  We deserve better."