Happy April 15

If you are among the late filers, take some time off from your last-minute calculations to check out your tax dollars at work. (And you can buy it here if you have anything left.)

Your overconfidence is your weakness

I'm not sure why I bothered to read Paul Krugman's Sunday New York Times piece taking on the tax protest Tea Parties, but I'm glad I did.

Predictably - and without much imagination - Krugman uses the Tea Parties as a way to bash conservative/Republican values such as economic freedom and lower taxes. The tea parties, he charges, "have been the subject of considerable mockery - and rightly so." Krugman never really explains why it is right to ridicule these demonstrations, opting instead to bash the traditional bogeymen of Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay. But a venerated columnist signing his name to Democratic Party talking points and submitting it as his own work isn't particularly noteworthy.

Krugman shows his self-imposed limits when he makes the claim that the tea parties are "AstroTurf (fake grass roots)." The demonstrations, he claims, are "manufactured" by groups like FreedomWorks and Fox News.

The great thing about being an opinion columnist for the Times is exactly the same as the great thing about being a blogger: apparently, you can just fire off your thoughts without doing any research. If Krugman had, he might have figured out that the people who are conducting Tea Parties aren't being paid. (Sure, there are organizers and leaders, but show me a political rally - or, for that matter, a riot - that doesn't have someone calling the shots.) If he knew anything about FreedomWorks, he would know that they have a massive database of people who have signed up to participate in activities like this - on their free time, when they aren't doing their day jobs. Actually, he probably could have found that out by picking up the phone and talking to someone over there - like a journalist would. If he had bothered to research the tea parties, he might have found the multiple websites that purport to be the "central headquarters" of the movement.

And how much money would it take to "AstroTurf" this much ground?

All of this makes Krugman's piece less of a thoughtful expression of an opinion in a policy discussion and more partisan hit piece. Giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that wasn't his goal, Krugman betrays his an intellectual sloth: the Republican Party is to be ridiculed because he cannot conceive of rational people agreeing with the philosophy of a smaller, more limited government, or opposing a massive influx of government capital to solve any problem deemed worthy.


In the real world, there are at least two sides to every story. In Krugman's mind, we the people just don't think that way - precluding the need for "research" on which so many real journalists spend time.

You might even say that Krugman's reality is "manufactured."

Sunday Funnies: A Message to Our Leaders

Jon Stewart doesn't think this week's Tea Party protesters - some of whom are sending tea bags to the White House - know what they are saying:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
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Or, maybe they know exactly what they're saying - and sending a very specific message to Washington:

Tea minus 7 days to Tax Day

If you haven't already filed, there's only a week left before income tax returns are due. If you've already filed, then you might be able to join one of the Tea Party protests of higher taxes going on nationwide.

The Tea Party movement has already spread to several cities - and in checking out their website, I wondered why I hadn't heard more about it.

Was it overt media bias? Partly - and left wing outlets like the Huffington Post are certainly paying attention. But as I like to mention whenever I talk about media relations, there's really no vast left-wing media conspiracy. Often, conservatives and libertarians just don't approach the media with their messages properly framed for a liberal audience (since most reporters are, in fact, liberals). The first sentence on the Tea Party website's About Us section - "A great evil has come upon this nation, and something has to be done" - probably feeds the media's groupthink that the movement is more fringe than freedom.

Nice going, boys, you're playing last week's tape

February 2: America wakes up to the news that Tom Daschle didn't pay $140K of his taxes, and for some reason that may cause trouble with his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. This comes on the heels of Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's tax controversy.

It all sounds so familiar...

Yes We Cantor

A running theme of the early Obama Administration has been "process."

When will the President make good on his promise to pull troops out of Iraq? How will the President handle the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo? When will the government pass an economic policy to make everything better? White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has frequently referred to each situation as a process - giving the Administration a chance to delay and diffuse questions.

And as Mama Eltringham pointed out to me today, one Republican is turning that back on the Administration. Faced with a harmful economic stimulus bill, Republicans are looking to delay and diffuse too - delay (or destroy) a harmful bill and diffuse criticism that they are suffering from sour grape syndrome since November. So Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia used the same language:

"The House is set to vote on the legislation as soon as tomorrow... Cantor said the House vote on the legislation 'is only the first step in the process.'"

Gibbs later credited Cantor with successfully pushing to publish the stimulus package online for public scrutiny - a tactic which not only delays the bill's passage, but forces the Obama Administration to explain spending $800+ billion in tax dollars during a time when working folks are pinching every penny to get by.

But don't accuse the Republicans of trying to sink the stimulus. They're just letting the process play out.

Harlem's Tax Revolution begins

With the mainstream media in full-scale Obama Love mode, it might seem Republican ideas like simplifying the tax code have fallen by the wayside. Luckily, filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney has taken to the streets of Harlem and talked to the constituents of House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangle (who's had his own problems with the tax code). Maloney shows just how wide an appeal these ideas have.

Party of the Rich?

Barack Obama promised to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. But according to Mark Penn's exit polling data, those Americans helped put Obama in the White House: 49% of those voters making over $100,000 voted for Obama. (To compare, Bill Clinton got 38% of that vote in 1996.)

This isn't surprising. Despite accusations that Republicans favor the wealthy, Democrats have a recent history of high-dollar support. Naturally, those who can afford to pay the higher taxes probably have no problem with a "progressive" tax reform plan.

Massholes!

My adopted home commonwealth of Massachusetts voted to keep their state income tax.

They also voted to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana - which answers the question, "What were they smoking?"

Mass voters may throw tea party Nov. 4

This Election Day, my adopted homeland of Massachusetts will vote on a referendum that would eliminate their state income tax. The last time Massachusetts citizens stood up against taxes, Boston Harbor smelled like oolong for weeks.