Semi-Daily Journal

The term is 'horserace' journalism. Everything is analyzed in terms of alleged tactics - who's up, who's down, who's attempting to break to the lead, etc.

Those journalists who couldn't take it went elsewhere.

"So why can't we get a bunch of journalists who actually understand and care about the numbers?"

It's a management decision...be interesting to interview various bosses and found out why. In general, though, economic reporting is slanted towards investment, local business, and local real estate news--material primarily of interest to the wealthy and near-wealthy. One has to go to actively left publications to see personally- useful labor market, consumer, or tax information. This is one way we know that the daily press isn't liberal.

Fixing the AMT has never been in any of Mr. Bush's policy statements.

My prediction:
From that it should be inferred that Mr. Bush will do nothing to fix it. The purpose of the tax cut is to cut taxes for the wealthy and transfer the burden onto the rest of us. The AMT is the perfect vehicle to raise taxes on the not so wealthy without actually having to raise taxes. Congress will feel the pressure from taxpayers, but the bully pulpit will cry that we cannot afford to fix the AMT.

As for why can't we have a decent press corp, perhaps the answer lies with the wealthy corporate owners who are gaining not only in wealth from current tax policy, but more importantly to them are gaining in relative wealth.

I have noticed this as well over the years. The press corps does an awful job at covering tax policy, particularly with regards to the actual details that affect you personally as opposed to the big picture ideological questions. After major tax legislation is passed it often takes me months to figure out how it will exactly effect me. I even once had to wait till the actual IRS forms and instructions for that tax year were available.

I guess The Note writers sum it up - they find it boring, probably especially the details. I think this a media blind spot. There are millions of personal investors and upper middle class and above readers that are very interested.

"Congress will feel the pressure from taxpayers, but the bully pulpit will cry that we cannot afford to fix the AMT."

Nonsense. Of course the Administration will ask Congress to fix the AMT. Get it, this Administration and almost all Republicans in Congress want more tax cuts! Tax cuts are what this Administration's fiscal policy is about. Pay attention!

One odd offshoot of the AMT is that it is essentially a flat tax and once tens of millions of taxpayers are subject to it we will be closer to a ... FLAT TAX. Just an dispassionate observation, I have been subject to the AMT for several of the last half dozen tax years and it kicks you when you're down. You're filling out your forms and suddenly you realize that all that state income tax you paid is not deductible. Ouch.

They find tax policy as boring as environmental policy. The only things they don't find boring are loud noises and blood, whatever gossip they can retell to let the sweaty masses get a glimpse of how important and close to power they are, and RNC spin points. None of those require any research, any knowledge, any of that painful _reporting_.

Good grief, do the math. We have a flat to slightly regressive tax structure NOW. What do you think the effect of these past tax cuts has been. Good grief.

They find tax policy as boring as environmental policy. The only things they don't find boring are loud noises and blood, whatever gossip they can retell to let the sweaty masses get a glimpse of how important and close to power they are, and RNC spin points. None of those require any research, any knowledge, any of that painful _reporting_.

jd, calm down. Clearly I was referring to a flat tax as commonly discussed, that is a single income tax rate. Please save your can of partisan whup ass for another day.

Lise, I disagree. This Administration is about cuts for the wealthy and not across the board tax cuts. For example, I'm still waiting to hear about a payroll tax cut.

Bush's 2001 tax cut covered most folks who pay non-dedicated income taxes. Payroll taxes can't be cut because that would disturb the fiction that payroll taxes are "buying" your Social Security entitlement. Bush isn't dumb enough to hand the Democrats THAT fat of a pitch to hit. "Bush is trying to destroy YOUR Social Security check! Bush HATES Seniors! SEE! PROOF!"

Payroll taxes should be rolled into the overall income tax structure, or at least extended to all wage income, but a payroll tax cut cannot be done by the Republicans. It must be the Democrats to carry that ball. And they don't wanna.

Sorry - We DO have a flat tax. Do the math, this is important. Warren Buffett tried to explain that we have a flat tax. We fortunately earn enough to know we have a flat tax. This is important! Do the math, the Administration would have us believe otherwise.

JD

Exactly. We do have a flat tax. Interesting the there is still no child care credit to be given to families earning under $27,000 even though they pay income taxes. This Administration has given us a flat or regressive tax folks, and the endless deficits to go with it.

So people so far have acted as if the only thing that the press corps finds boring is tax policy and legislation. The boredom and innumeracy go well beyond that, of course. For my money, the #1 scandal in Washington is the fact that so very few bills are ever read by even the staffers of each representative or senator before they are voted on. This obviously provides a great opportunity for willful abuse, but it gets worse than that when you consider that in many situations, *nobody really knows what the effect of the whole bill will be*. Things have gotten so bad that I get a case of the giggles whenever the Supreme Court says anything about the intent of Congress when ruling on some legislation. I guess it's a philosophical question, but I wonder whether it makes any sense to talk about an agent's "intentions" when it is pretty clear that the agent did not even know what it did.

To be fair, reporting on this kind of thing is very, very tough. Because legislation is not written to be read, even a very determined person might give up before the meaning is clear. I personally learned my lesson when I tried to read the latest highway bill (SAFE-TEA; don't laugh too hard). It's over 300 pages long, is about as important as anything else that will have to pass congress this year, and I'd be surprised if as many as 50 people on the planet really understand it. But that's okay, since the only thing that depends on this is pretty much every federal highway project dollar for the next six years...