This morning, I was driving the elementary school car pool, and my tactic of choice was playing classical music. This may have made the five children a little less wild, but it didn’t lull them into a reverie.
Right after 8 o’clock, between Beethoven’s First Symphony and a symphony by Frederick the Great, WETA, D.C.’s National Public Radio affiliate, cut away to two news segments from NPR News. The news items, through subtle but undeniable sins of omission, reminded me of why I resent my tax dollars funding NPR.
Here is a section from the first segment:
“House Republican leaders are still working to finalize their massive tax and border protection bill … But House Speaker Mike Johnson is still balancing a push for moderates to increase a tax break for constituents who live in districts with high state and local taxes with demands from conservatives to slash federal spending.”
Set aside the editorializing in their adjective and verb choices (“massive … slash”) and focus on the description of the debate over the state and local tax deduction.
It is simply “a tax break for constituents who live in districts with high state and local taxes.”
That much is true, but woefully incomplete. Most people who live in high-tax places will not get a tax break if these “moderates” get their way and increase the deductible amount of state and local taxes from $30,000 (the limit in the current bill) to $60,000 (what these holdouts want).
This is objectively a massive tax cut for the wealthy. Working-class and middle-class households in, say, Maryland, get nothing from this demanded tax cut. The median household in Montgomery County, a high-tax jurisdiction in WETA’s listening area, pays just above $5,000 a year in property taxes and just over $11,000 in state and county income taxes. So the average taxpayer in Montgomery County gains nothing from a SALT deduction greater than $16,000. Only the wealthiest benefit, but you wouldn’t know that from NPR’s reporting.
Contrast this omission to how they covered the underlying bill when it passed:
When NPR wrote about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included tax breaks for every income group, and actually shifted the federal income tax burden more fully to the wealthy, the station said, “Trump’s package delivered disproportionately to corporations and the wealthy.”
Here’s NPR quoting an “expert” who said of the 2017 bill: “It’s definitely the wealthiest of the wealthy who benefited from that tax cut.”
Now that the “moderates” arrayed against Trump and aligned with the Democrats are calling for a tax cut that literally only helps the wealthy, the wealth of the recipients gets omitted.
As I stewed over this omission this morning, the next segment began:
“The Justice Department says it has opened an investigation into whether the city of Chicago had hired people solely on the basis of race. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says the investigation will not deter him from diversity efforts … The DOJ cites Johnson’s comments over the weekend at a church in Woodlawn, where he was asked about hiring for minorities and in response listed top black officials in his Cabinet.”
Then NPR quoted Johnson: “When you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else.”
The report continues: “The DOJ cites the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a landmark win in the fight against segregation of black Americans. Johnson called the investigation the latest hostile attack on diversity by the Trump administration. ‘My administration reflects the country, reflects the city. His administration reflects the country club.’ Johnson’s office is 34% black, 30% white, and 24% Hispanic, a spokesperson says.”
First, you’ll notice the lack of balance. Johnson’s denials get significant airtime, while the DOJ’s argumentation is reduced to nine words.
AMERICA NEEDS MORE STAY-AT-HOME PARENTS
But once again, the key point is the omission. Johnson’s full statement at the church included this line: “When you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet.”
“Our people” meant “black people.” He’s laying out an argument for preferring black people in hiring. That’s another detail NPR’s listeners would benefit from knowing.