If the media attack Obama, it’s usually from the far left.
In an August 27 CNNMoney.com [1] story, reporter Jeanne Sahidi criticized President Obama for refusing to let his tax reform task force consider raising taxes on 98 percent of Americans. Sahidi stated the task force’s goal was to discover new ways to increase revenue through the tax code and was frustrated Obama didn’t push the group to raise taxes.
“The president, however, also tied the group's hands by not allowing it to consider any options that would raise taxes on the vast majority of Americans,” wrote Sahidi.
Sahidi bemoaned the task force for not “tap[ping] 98 percent of the country” and declared the panel’s efforts dead without waiting to hear their recommendations:
“By constraining the task force, he [Obama] essentially closed off any hope that the panel would consider ways to fully reform the tax code.”
Sahidi paraded the liberal talking point on how “tax breaks reduce federal revenue by more than $1 trillion every year” but Sahidi never offered other fiscal policy options. Instead, Sahidi focused solely on tax policy and their “disproportionate rewards:”
“Once a tax break is passed into law, it's hard to eliminate. And there's very little follow-up by lawmakers to assess whether it's working or not, disproportionately rewarding one group of taxpayers over another.”
Sahidi, like other members of the media [2], treated tax increases as the only option for increasing revenue. While Sahidi criticized Obama from a far left position, she never took on his government spending spree.
“It’s obvious the problem in
Edwards told the Business & Media Institute the amount of money received from tax revenues is over-hyped and the tax argument is more about playing politics.
“It’s class warfare, it’s not balancing the budget,” Edwards said. “The more you increase tax rates at the top income levels; you’ll get less investment and lower GDP.”
Furthermore, The Heritage Foundation [3] noted the deficit accrued from tax cuts is miniscule compared to the deficit accrued from increased government spending. According to Heritage, by 2017 above average spending will account for 100 percent of increased budget deficits.
The media are slowly criticizing Obama but mostly they criticize his policies from the left [4]. While the media seem intent on vilifying the Bush tax cuts [5], they never point the finger at the real culprit: outrageous government spending.
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