April 04, 2012
The NYT did some serious head said/she said reporting when it concluded an article reporting on President Obama’s criticism of the tax cuts for the rich in the Republican budget:
“In theory, tax writers could focus on tax breaks that primarily help the rich, like the deduction for charitable giving, or end the biggest tax breaks only for upper income earners. But Democrats say such selective changes to the tax code would never recoup such large cuts to income tax rates.”
It is not just Democrats who say that taking back a selective group of tax breaks for the rich will not offset a big cut in tax rates. It happens to be true.
The one tax break that could be offsetting, the lower tax rate for dividends and capital gains, has been declared off-limits by the Republicans. The amount of taxes at issue for the remaining tax breaks would not come close to offsetting a reduction in the top marginal tax rate of more than 15 percentage points for the top 1 percent of the income distribution. The NYT should have made that clear to readers.
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