It begins: Detroit Free Press labels deal not to raise taxes 'stimulus'

Good job state-run media!

Rush Limbaugh was absolutely correct yesterday in opining that the compromise where tax rates wouldn't increase for anyone for 2 years will be billed as a stimulus. The state-run, sycophantic, suck-up Detroit Free Press went full-bore in that direction with an editorial this morning that was full of stimulus this, tax cut that. This is the same paper that regularly and universally advocates for every tax increase possible under the sun. The gas tax, income taxes, yada, yada. Let's just be clear - there are no tax cuts. The compromise is an extension of the current tax rates that have been in effect for the better part of a decade. It's a concept the Detroit Free Press just doesn't understand: Obama strikes imperfect but beneficial tax-stimulus deal

The tax/stimulus agreement struck by President Barack Obama with congressional leaders has many pluses and is the right thing to do at this moment in time. No one will call it perfect, but that's what compromise is all about.

For starters, it protects low- and middle-income earners better than had seemed possible. Not only does it keep the Bush-era tax cuts for those workers, it also retains measures devised as part of Obama's stimulus plan -- expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and tuition credits, for example -- for those at the lower end of the scale.

Remember when the freep bemoaned the Bush tax cuts back in 2003? That it was a waste of money and only benefited the rich? Looks like those tax cuts were for everyone and benefited those at the bottom of the scale. The freep in that one statement destroyed its own almost 8-year-old stance on the subject. But the freep goes even further. They hail a small one year furlough of the social security tax again as a stimuluative effect in citizens having to pay less in taxes:

And it has a stimulus-style boost for every worker: a one-year suspension of 2 percentage points of the Social Security tax. Given that most workers have taken a pay cut, moved to jobs with lower pay when their old ones disappeared or, at the very least, are paying more toward their health insurance, that's an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

And then the freep goes on to proclaim to speak for all of Michigan in insisting that a tax increase would "drain dollars" from the Michigan economy. Funny how they never paint a tax increase in this way. Until today that is:

...Indeed, the view from Michigan supports everything Obama has striven to protect. It's terrifying to consider what the state's economy might look like if it were drained of the dollars represented by the jobless pay extensions and the tax cuts currently in place. The state with the second highest jobless rate and the deepest plummet in household income cannot stand too many more shocks.

Just in case anyone thinks that the editorial board at the freep woke up today and finally chose to take the red pill, think again. They are simply towing the Obama line. Putting on the Obama kee pads as it were. The death tax, for instance, is coming back but at 35% rather than 55%. The editors call this "generous." They insist that it will lower the deficit, which is utter ignorance of history. As I have pointed out many times before: each $1 in higher taxes results in $1.17 of new spending. Increasing taxes on anyone in any way will make the deficit worse, not better because Congress in whatever the opposite of infinite wisdom is, will simply spend it on new programs.

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2010/12/it-begins-detroit-free-press-labels.html

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

Sent from my iPhone