Stingy Ideas From a Liberal News Media

One of the most striking aspects of the Obama Administration’s attack on Rush Limbaugh and the defense of the attack by most of the news jorunalists, is the inability of the Administration and the news media to seemingly comprehend that there may be other valid solutions to the country’s problems other than those endorsed by President Obama.

It is a fair assumption that the Obama Administration is intentionally not acknowledging any alternatives. That’s probably a tactic covered by Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals.

More striking is to hear news journalists advance their opinion that either you’re for President Obama or you want the country to fail. As an example, see Mike Allen, of the www.politico.com on the March 6th Morning Joe on MSNBC.

Mr. Allen seems to be so taken with the idea of the Obama Administration that he’s incapable imagining an alternative to any of their proposals, no matter how poorly presented, poorly timed or poorly conceived by the President.

Let’s Be Honest

In his March 2, 2009 column E.J. Dionne, Jr. make an appeal to our better angels, calling for income redistribution,  noting that it’s “important for both sides to be honest about the numbers”. Mr. Dionne relied on Peter Orzag, President Obama’s budget director, to provide him with numbers for his column. Unfortunately, Mr. Dionne, assuming the best no doubt, did not check to see if Mr. Orzag’s presentation met Dionne’s standard of  “honesty” and he included a misleading, blatantly partisan claim in his column.

Mr. Orzag, and more prominently, President Obama, have been making the claim that the rich have not been paying their “fair share” of taxes. Mr. Dionne’s column quoted Mr. Orzag noting that the share of the top 1% earners income had doubled and to quote the column “Now, he said, was their time “to pitch in a bit more”.

“Now”? The implication seems to be that while the rich have been making all this money they haven’t been paying any more taxes. That is simply not not true. The share of the total income tax burden paid by the top 1% of earners has increased by 55% in the last 20 years to 2006. 2006 being the most recent year data has been released by the IRS.

Mr. Dionne fails to meet his own standards for honesty much less an economic or moral case for takings the fruits of one man’s labor and giving it to another.