MediaWatch: February 1996
Table of Contents:
- MediaWatch: February 1996
- A Social Problem Blamed on Reaganomics Fades Away in Clinton-Era Media Coverage
- NewsBites: Tricky Dick's Tax Break
- CBS Reporter Bernard Goldberg Charges Colleague
- Networks Scared of Flat Tax
- Global Warming Shtick Returns The Heat Is Off
- Transportation's Travel Bill
- Knowledgeable Limbaugh Dittoheads
- Janet Cooke Award: The Evangelical Right Wing That Wasn't
Networks Scared of Flat Tax
Furious At Forbes
The higher Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes rose in the polls, the more reporters felt compelled to discredit his flat tax proposal, often by trying to stir class envy.
In the February 8 Investor's Business Daily reporter Thomas McArdle uncovered the agenda. In mid-January ABC News interviewed Alvin Rabushka, a Senior Fellow with the Hoover Institution and an architect of the flat tax idea, for a Peter Jennings piece. Rabushka told McArdle that "the cameras rolled for an hour, and throughout the hour, over and over again, he kept trying to get me to agree it would be a tax on the middle class, if not in the long run, then at least in the interim period. And over and over I wouldn't say it." Rabushka concluded that Jennings just wanted to "get me to say the 18-second soundbite he wanted to use to discredit Steve Forbes."
Indeed, Rabushka did not appear in Jennings' January 15 World News Tonight story in which he tagged the flat tax as "a very radical notion." Jennings wondered "Will plumbers be hurt more than plutocrats? President Clinton believes that middle class homeowners will see the value of their homes go down if there is no mortgage deduction. And charities worry about how generous folks will be if their contribution is no longer deductible. Certainly the rich would do better than the middle class."
Two days later NBC's Mike Jensen looked at three families, concluding as fact: "For poor and middle class families, critics say the 17 percent flat tax is a cruel hoax, that to avoid big deficits, it would have to be much higher than 17 percent. So not only would it fail to help the poor, it would increase taxes for most middle class Americans."
Nightline devoted its February 1 edition to a 30-minute assault. Robert Krulwich went through four supposed benefits of the flat tax, concluding each was wrong. As for fairness, he decided that "it doesn't seem fair that while" millionaire candidate Morry Taylor "pays zero tax on his $15 million" in stock sales, "his employees -- because they're not getting stock, they're on a salary -- they pay a 17 percent tax on their money; but that's what happens when you eliminate capital gains."
As for whether it's simpler, Krulwich decided it's not because not everyone will really be able to do their taxes on a postcard. Moving on to the third claim of lower taxes for everyone, he countered: "Sounds wonderful, but then Forbes' tax helps some more than others, especially wealthy families. Still, somebody must lose and the government could be the big loser. Forbes' tax could cut government revenues by $40 billion a year or $180 billion, depending upon who you ask, which means deeper cuts in programs" or bigger deficits.
On the last claim, that it "will be good for the economy," he explained how "Forbes is an old-fashioned, kick-up-your-heels optimist. He believes if you don't tax savings, people will save a lot more. If you don't tax investment income, people will invest a lot more, and in the end, the economy will grow a lot more." He countered that "history does not bless Steve Forbes' optimism." For the rest of the show Ted Koppel interviewed two opponents: Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson and the magazine's Wall Street editor Allan Sloan, who sneered, "when I first heard it, I almost fell on the floor laughing wondering how anyone could take it seriously."
