Tax Cut Ignorance



The truth really hurts, but only if you admit it...

Back in May, as Congress debated a new Tax Cut package, the esteemed opinion makers at the New York Times railed against evil Republican 'tax cuts for the rich' and its obvious downside:
...There's nothing in it for most Americans, and yet all Americans will pay its cost: $69 billion over the near term. That price tag will be reflected in incessant budget deficits, which will further impair the government's ability to meet Americans' needs, and force the government to borrow more, mostly from abroad, to plug the budget gap...

Imagine the surprise to most NYT readers, happy in their knowledge that Republicans were bankrupting the country to pay off their wealthy pals, when the following words graced the pages of the Grey Lady:
An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief....

Oooops! Maybe that should have been run as a correction, instead of a news story.

Of course the Times does its best to shortchange the story. The first evidence is the use of the words "surprising" and "unexpectedly" right up front. Now if the times is truly surprised by this, perhaps they ought to read up on the Laffer Curve.

Now the Times tries to discount all this evidence by framing the story as Republican 'arguments' versus the facts of Democratic and "many independent budget analysts". They even try to stick Bush with the crime of robbing the Social Security surplus....God knows the Dems invented that chicanery decades before Bush even thought about politics.

Posted: Sat - July 8, 2006 at 09:58 PM          

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