False Argument on Taxes

Date: September 27, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Income Equality, Taxes

Let’s have a show of hands: Do you want free-market capitalism or egalitarian socialism?

This is the argument that passes for political discourse. Victor Claar, as reported in The Post Sunday, believes that “ [w]hether because of differing intelligence, skill, ambition or luck, free markets produce different outcomes for different people, so envy is inevitable.”

That seems reasonable but he takes the argument to the illogical conclusion that because of these often random chances and opportunities, envy is behind the “social justice” urge to “spread the wealth around.” He says such ideas are “mean” because liberals are “suggesting those making over (sic) $250,000 should feel guilty for the hard work they have done to contribute something others find valuable enough to voluntarily pay for…. [P]ursuing self-interest in a system that allows you to be rewarded for pursuit of your own self-interest and at the same time in service of others? That’s certainly better than the alternative.”

And here I thought we were just talking about an adjustment to the tax code. Claar sees the end of the world as we know it.

Raising taxes on the wealthy is not socialism.  And asking those making more than $250,000 isn’t asking that they feel guilty, just asking they help pave the roads and build our schools. But that request is translated by economic conservatives as a guilt trip. Gee, now that you’ve figured me out, can I get up from the couch, doctor?

Pursuing self-interest and being rewarded for success? Seems reasonable to me. But much of what he and others are so strident in defending is not free market capitalism. What we have is a convoluted system of codes, judicial opinions and regulations that to many seem a rigged game.

Some folks just want a more level playing field, like the one we had 50 years ago while we were building interstate highways and suburban boxes for the prospering middle class.

Tax hikes are not apocalypses. But it seems to behoove those against such hikes to predict dire consequences. It much like the argument that raising taxes will shut down entrepreneurship and business investment. I doubt if a businessman wants to invest $1 million because he thinks there’s a $5 million return on investment he is, in the face of a three-four percent tax hike, going to put the money in his mattress instead of taking home $4.6 million.

Maybe worse, he’ll shoot himself because he now lives in a socialist state.

Illegal Immigrants Are Taking Americans’ Jobs

Date: September 27, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Immigration

Uh, no they aren’t.

Most Americans simply don’t apply for jobs harvesting fruits and vegetables in California, where one of every eight people is out of work, according to government data for a federal seasonal farmworker program analyzed by The Associated Press.

And the few unemployed Americans who apply through official channels usually don’t stay on in the fields, a point comedian Stephen Colbert — dressed as a field hand — has alluded to in recent broadcasts on Comedy Central.

"It’s just not something that most Americans are going to pack up their bags and move here to do," said farmer Steve Fortin, who pays $10.25 an hour to foreign workers to trim strawberry plants for six weeks each summer at his nursery near the Nevada border. He has spent $3,000 this year ensuring domestic workers have first dibs on his jobs in the sparsely populated stretch of the state, advertising in newspapers and on an electronic job registry.

Progressive Rally Ignored by The Post?

Date: September 27, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: NY Times, Protests, Right-wing echo chamber, Washington Post

I find it curious that, given all the run-up coverage The Washington Post gave to the Beck rally on August 28, I can find no mention in The Post about the planned rally this coming weekend on the Mall by progressive groups, who have stated their goal is to surpass the number of people who attend the Beck rally.

The New York Times covered the plans this weekend.

When I called the Post’s national desk this morning, the man answering could give me no answer and transferred me to Dan Balz’s email.

UPDATE:  After a series of email exchanges, I was referred to a July story about not the planned march but the formation of the “One Nation” coalition.  We’ll see if The Post gives this march much coverage and whether it rates this archived altar to Beck’s rally.

Post Editor Profiled in CJR

Date: September 17, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Marcus Brauchli, Washington Post

The Columbia Journalism Review has a detailed portrait of The Washington Post’s Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli.  It’s no puff piece.

Brauchli knows how to read a spreadsheet and how to serve the needs of some online readers. But the Post also needs a leader who is articulate, imaginative, and inspirational, and some of his troops are restless. A reporter with a sterling reputation wonders: “How much longer is Don going to stand for this? When will he say: ‘this is not working—we need a different person?’ ”

Will Democrats Fall for the Tax Trap?

Date: September 17, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Congressional GOP, Message, Obama, Taxes

Congressional Republicans are floating the “compromise” of extending all tax cuts for two years.  It sounds like a compromise all right, and of course, The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery, who betrays her Republican bias in almost every story she writes, takes pains to call other Republicans “equally willing to compromise,”  to frame the debate between compromising Republicans and the Obama position.  Of course, his position was already a compromise—a willingness to extend some tax cuts but not all.

But it’s a trap for Democrats.  It would put tax cuts squarely in the middle of the 2012 election, and Republicans are sure to call for their extension.  They would love to have tax cuts as a central issue because no one ever loses by appealing to the most selfish and ignorant of the American electorate.

With a closely divided Congress a near certainty for the next two years, and the economy likely to improve some, voters are likely to give credit to the fact that more Republicans are in Congress, even if they accomplish nothing.  And if we have a double dip recession, the GOP will not get the blame; Obama will.  Having the tax cut debate during the 2012 presidential campaign is a sure loser.

Salt Lake Paper Limits Comments

Date: September 16, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Anonymity, Commenters

The Deseret News has instituted a new comments policy.  The newspaper encourages but doesn’t require that commenters post using a screen name that is a form of their real name.  Not sure why they don’t just require the real name as they are requiring a real name and zip code in the registration process. 

What strikes me as wrong, however, is its new policy to limit the number of times one person can comment to two.  These sections, if they were among people we could identify, might be much more constructive and civil.  Discussion should be encouraged, and I wish more reporters would weigh in with clarifications when people draw incorrect assumptions about the issue covered.  Not that over taxed reporters have the time, mind you.

It makes little difference to me, as I rarely comment on a story and almost never read any of the comments. (There are exceptions, such as some blogs like Press Think’s comments section, which tends to be illuminating.

I have yet to hear a cogent argument why online comments can be anonymous, but letters to the editor cannot.

Anyone have an answer for that?

One in Seven Americans Live in Poverty

Date: September 16, 2010
Author: Bob Griendling
Categories: Economic Policy, Taxes

Is this a great country or what?

The 14.3 percent poverty rate, which covers all ages, was the highest since 1994. Still, it was lower than estimates of many demographers who were bracing for a record gain based on last year’s skyrocketing unemployment. Many had predicted a range of 14.7 percent to 15 percent.

Analysts credited in part increases in Social Security payments in 2009 as well as federal expansions of unemployment insurance, which rose substantially in 2009 under the economic stimulus program. With the additional unemployment benefits, workers were eligible for extensions that gave them up to 99 weeks of payments after a layoff.

Another likely factor was a record number of working mothers, who helped households by bringing home paychecks after the recession took the jobs of a disproportionately high number of men.

"Given all the unemployment we saw, it’s the government safety net that’s keeping people above the poverty line," said Douglas Besharov, a University of Maryland public policy professor and former scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

So let’s government spending some more and so away with Social Security.  Even conservatives (not the right-wingers on Capitol Hill) recognize the value of a government safety net.  When you don’t have a job, cutting income taxes doesn’t do much for you.