Mitch McConnell & Rightwing Media Bias [New]
So, this weekend, Mitch McConnell made news once again by being an ass, as TPM, among many others, reported: “McConnell: Not My Job To Prevent Firefighter, Police Layoffs”
The idea of not wanting to employ teachers, firemen and police is naturally what got the most attention–and I noticed that first, as well. But what really got my attention, as I got beyond the headline, was the zombie lie here:
“I certainly do approve of firefighters and police,” said McConnell. “The question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work. They are local and state employees.”
Obama’s proposal last week would NOT rasie taxes on 300,000 small businesses. In fact, it would not raise taxes on ANY businesses. It would only raise taxes on PERSONAL INCOMES over $1 million. If you’re a business owner, your personal income is what you take out of the business. By definition, it has no impact on the business itself. In fact, as David Cay Johnson has pointed out repeatedly, raising the personal tax rate makes it less attractive to take money out of a business, so higher tax rates on the wealthy are actually an incentive for business growth, rather than a disincentive.
What’s more, we actually have a pretty good idea of who actually would be paying those taxes, rather than McConnell’s mythical “300,000 small businesses”. This was pulled together recently by Mike Konzal at Rortybomb in a mid-October post titled “Who are the 1%, and what do they do for a living?”
He actually provided two charts–one for the top 1% and one for the top 0.1%. The $1 million level where the surtax would kick in is actually above the 0.5% level. But the two charts are generally fairly similar, I would say. See for yourself:
[Click to enlarge in new window]
Those are the people who would REALLY be paying the surtax under the Democrats’ tax provision–only after the first $1 million in income. Obviously, some of them are business owners, but that’s not what they would be taxed for under the Democrats’ plan. This applies to those explicitly listed as “entreprenuers”, for example. And we should expect that a good number of those listed in law, real estate or medicine are business owners in the sense of being either sole owners or partners. But this is NOT the case for the large percentage of executives, managers and supervisors. They may own substantial shares of stock, but they are not business owners in either the legal or common sense of the term.
In short, the rhetorical world that Mitch McConnell inhabits has very little in common with the real world of actual economic activity. And the political reporters, editors, pundits, etc. who write about such things are either as ignorant as he is, or else they are otherwise derelict in the duties, with the end result that rightwing lies such as those McConnell spouts are treated on a par with actual economic facts. That can only mean that the economic policy discourse is heavily biased in a rightwing direction, treating zombies lies as if they were economic truths.
What Do You Think?
3 Responses to 'Mitch McConnell & Rightwing Media Bias'
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Emocrat [New]
Monday, 24 Oct, 2011 at 6:03 pm
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops:
So very true. Just as a Tobin Tax would reduce speculation by the High-Frequency Trading Algos (HFTs) by fairly massive proportions. Say hello to financial stability! And politically, does anyone with two or more functioning synapses think making Goldman Sachs, Shitibank, JPMorgan Chase et al, pay a shitload of taxes would be even remotely unpopular?
Anyway, people like McConnell say the things they do because they know no one is going to call them on it. I’m not sure if bias is even a strong enough word for it. I don’t think so. Bias suggests it can be corrected through some professional or ethical education, but it’s clearly a programmatic problem. Scientists have to be mindful of bias all the time. Social scientists especially, given the distinctly unscientific limitations of their work… when those arise. But reporters, erm, stenographers are under no such constraints. Tis a shame, of course, because good reporting can do a world of actual good. (And yes, I’m biased, because as we all know, facts have a “liberal” bias!)*
So the words “paradigm” or “program” come to mind, since this is basically an institutional problem.
In any case, it’s a shame this is really necessary, but hammering on all this is still very much needed. McConnell and the noisome wank-pads like him, will always be a fixture in US politics. The more nefarious folks are the ones who legitimize such wankery under the banner of “objectivity,” to which I sorely object!
*–Welcome to the Gordian Knot Of Bias!
Tim [New]
Monday, 24 Oct, 2011 at 6:43 pm
The Republican party has an interesting scam going on, whether intentional or not, that McConnell’s quote highlights.
At the federal level, the Republican party pushes for de-taxation of extreme wealth which guts infrastructure spending that creates local jobs and direct funding for local programs like education (e.g. hiring teachers), police, and fire. Without this federal money, local governments are forced to raise taxes, income taxes at the state level and property taxes at the town and county level.
At the federal level, Republicans are all about refusing to pay for local expenses that creates jobs and sustains economic growth throughout the country that would be impossible to create locally otherwise. Small towns, for example, are unlikely to have money to build sewer and water systems, especially in rural areas.
The increase in local taxes, caused by Republican federal policy, lets local Republicans portray themselves as the anti-tax party, as in anti local property tax increases. And no one in the media, certainly at the local level, seems to notice the crass disparity in rhetoric and policy.
It’s nice work if you can get it, I suppose. But it wreaks needless havoc on our politics and our economy.
VictorInLA [New]
Tuesday, 8 Nov, 2011 at 10:21 am
Paul, once again, on the big picture you’ve hit the nail right on the head. Laws governing business (including tax laws) can and should be skewed to favor growth in productivity that benefits all rather just than the consolidation of wealth and technologies among the few. In this piece, however, I think Republican Thinkspeak about “small businesses” got you a bit tongue tied and potentially makes what you’ve written a dog whistle for those that would oppose what you advocate.
Tax laws affecting C-Corporations and businesses that avail themselves of the myriad of loopholes that shelter flowthrough income from income tax are not the tax laws that affect most businesses. The mechanics you describe in this piece are, therefore, not universal enough to be a “definition” that most business owners use or understand. Most businesses are conducted as proprietorships, partnerships, and S-Corporations—without regard to the lobbied-for loopholes that benefit the few. Therefore, for most business owners, there is no divide between the taxes levied on their business profits and the taxes that affect them at the personal level. In other words, for most business owners, keeping money “in the business” or taking money “out of the business” does not avoid or create a taxable event.
Since the tax reforms of 1986, Republicans have accelerated their misuse of the “small business” meme because the term “small business” is irresistibly right there in the Internal Revenue Code in black and white. The IRC defined S-Corporations as “qualified small businesses” that, among other things required having only 75 shareholders (recently increased to 100). There is, of course, no limit to the revenues or profits these “small businesses” can generate. The thing is that, the taxable income these “small businesses” generate is NOT taxed at the corporate level but passed through proportionally (via a Form K-1) to the shareholders who pay tax at the individual tax rates on their Form 1040. This terminology and system conveniently lets the advocates of the 1% scream that raises in taxes on INDIVIDUALS is the same thing as raising taxes on “small businesses.”
The irony here is that—even though you and Mitch McConnell are essentially pointing out the same thing (that the taxes that matter are those that affect individuals)—when Republicans use their “small business” Thinkspeak, very few who hear them realize what they’re talking about. Most of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh are under the delusion that most business profits are subjected to tax only when those profits are withdrawn from the business. So when they hear Mitch McConnell say “Liberals want to raise taxes on ‘small businesses’,” they incorrectly assume that Liberals want to tax corporate profits that are corralled WITHIN businesses—profits that they incorrectly assume would otherwise be available to invest tax-free in hiring workers, creating new technologies, etc.
Because of Americans’ confusion about their own tax system, I think we Liberals have to be extremely careful about throwing around the term “corporation” and “corporate” when we describe the members of the 1% that don’t want to pay their fair share. By using this language, we ascribe to a narrative frame that favors the Republicans and the greedy one percenters. Though the language of “greedy corporations” tends to galvanize our supporters somewhat, I think it energizes the opposition much more.
If we’re going to describe taxes and corporations and the one percent, we therefore need to make very clear who it is we’re actually talking about (the the large-profit and large-wealth “people” behind the corporations of whom Mitt Romney so fondly speaks). If we’re not clear, some will hear what we say and think (wrongly) that we want to tax their bosses, their neighborhood small-PROFIT businesses, etc. We’ll essentially be blowing a dog whistle that calls out the wrong dogs!