THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2011
Ezra speaks: Good lord! Hold the phone! While we’re at it, will Katie please bar the door?
Impossible! In one of the nation’s biggest newspapers, someone has actually written a piece describing some basic, bone-simple realities! Basic realities involving the role of current tax policy in creating our yawning deficits!
The person in question is Ezra Klein, writing in yesterday’s Washington Post. And no, we’re not talking about a blog post! Klein’s piece appeared on page A10, right in the hard-copy Post! For evidence of this unlikely fact, go ahead—just click here!
To what extent have current tax rates helped create our deficit problem? Your big “news organs” have spent the past year refusing to discuss this question—but yesterday, Klein stepped up to the plate. Here’s how he started, including his headline. We’ll translate his words below:
KLEIN (8/3/11): One shot on taxes: Don’t blow it, Democrats
There are now two sides in the American tax debate: the Republican Party, which refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes, and the Democratic Party, which . . . refuses to have a serious conversation about taxes.
Let's start here: We cannot fund anything close to the government's commitments if we don't raise taxes, or if we let only the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000 expire. And that's true even if we make deep cuts across all categories of federal spending.
Good lord! That highlighted statement is rather opaque, so let’s get clear on what Klein said. If we want to get close to solving this problem, we have to let the Bush tax cuts expire! And that means all the Bush tax cuts! Not just those on high earners!
We have to dump all the Bush tax rates! By now, you can probably see that Klein really did say that in the statement we have highlighted. But later on, he stated the point more clearly:
KLEIN: Democrats will have exactly one chance to overcome the GOP's resistance to tax revenue. Next year, the Bush tax cuts expire. If Congress does nothing, we revert to Clinton-era tax rates for everyone, and the federal coffers fill with $3.6 trillion in additional revenue over the next 10 years—enough to stabilize deficits. This is a rare opportunity in which it's Democrats who hold the hostage and Republicans who have to compromise.
[...]
To govern responsibly, Democrats cannot simply raise taxes on the rich and call it a day. That's a world in which Republicans continuously force crises, refuse taxes, and extract deeper and deeper cuts.
You can read the whole piece for yourself. We’re not saying that Klein is right; we’d like to see the point discussed further. But at long last, a major “newspaper” has permitted this topic to enter the public discussion! Katie, report to the door!
Over the last six months, your major “newspapers” have pretended to discuss the budget situation. As part of this Potemkin discussion, these news orgs have avoided discussing the role played by the Bush tax cuts in creating the current situation. There have been a few exceptions, of course. On Sunday, July 24, Teresa Tritch created a one-day sensation when she made a dramatic if claim about what would occur if we dropped all the Bush tax cuts.
On-line, the liberal world got excited. For part of one whole day!
You live in a post-journalistic society. In truth, your country has no real “press corps.” It has no real “public discussion.”
Yesterday, the Washington Post published an actual claim about the actual state of the actual budget! How long will such an unusual action be allowed to stand?
Tomorrow: Hardball and Maddow, so awful
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