$150 billion. That’s “the cost to taxpayers” for President Barack Obama’s proposal to not increase the income tax rate for those earning less than $250,000, White House correspondent Norah O’Donnell bizarrely asserted on Monday’s CBS Evening News. As for Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s desire to keep rates the same for all permanently, O’Donnell fretted: “The cost to taxpayers? An additional $850 billion over the next ten years.”
So, not increasing the amount a person pays in federal income tax is a “cost” to them? That’s just surreal, but reflects the media’s conflation of taxpayers and the government.
Isn’t it more a “cost” to the government? Or, I guess you could consider it a “cost” to the nearly half the population who are income tax freeloaders for whom liberals in government would have less to spend to buy their votes.
Audio: MP3 clip [1]
From the Monday, July 9 CBS Evening News:
NORAH O’DONNELL: ...President Obama is calling on Congress to pass a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000 a year and individuals earning less than $200,000. Those tax cuts expire at the end of December and the cost to taxpayers for the year: $150 billion.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: So I’m not proposing anything radical. I just believe that anybody making over $250,000 a year should go back to the income tax rates we were paying under Bill Clinton. Back when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest budget surplus in history, and plenty of millionaires to boot.
O’DONNELL: But Republicans -- including Mitt Romney -- want to make permanent all of the Bush-era tax cuts, including those for households earning over $250,000. The cost to taxpayers? An additional $850 billion over the next ten years....
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here [2] to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.